The Best of the Best, and Worst of the Worst

Ok, so it's a bit past the half year point, but I figured it was close enough. It's my blog after all, I'll do what I want. Thanks to being on almost constant bedrest, I watch A LOT of movies. A lot of them are good, but even more of them tend to be in the "suck" category. So obviously, with all of this movie viewing going on, I have an opinion about which was best, and which was the worst film.

WORST
The Other Boleyn Girl
Starring: Natalie Portman, Scarlet Johansson, Eric Bana



Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!! That was my general feeling after viewing this movie. To be fair, I was a bit biased towards hating the film before I even sat down to watch it. I'm a huge fan of Tudor history, and most especially of Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, and the mother of legendary Queen Elizabeth I. She's by far my favorite historical character. Most history fanatics find that they either love Anne or hate her. And most of the people who hate her don't know much about her at all. They think of her as the woman who broke up the two decade long marriage of Henry and Katherine of Aragon. When in reality, Anne wasn't at all interested in Henry. He violently pursued her, until she agreed to be with him. Anne refused to become another of Henry's mistresses, as her elder sister Mary had been. She told Henry, who was passionately in love with her (if Henry VIII could have possibly loved anyone other than himself) that he could only have her if he married her, and made her queen. Henry had long been tired of his marriage to Katherine, as she could not provide him with a living male heir. Of their many pregnancies, only one daughter, Mary (later to become Queen Mary I) survived past childhood. Henry figured that by getting rid of Katherine, he could have both Anne and a son. But the Pope would not provide Henry a divorce from Katherine, as he had already granted them a dispensation to marry in the first place. Katherine had originally been the wife of Henry's elder brother, Arthur; but when he had died in his teens, she became engaged to Henry. Because no divorce could be achieved through the Catholic Church, Henry broke from Rome and invented the Church of England. He married Anne, and she gave birth to Elizabeth in 1533. Unfortunately for Anne, she also couldn't give birth to a living son. She had two miscarriages before Henry had her executed in 1536 on trumped up charges of adultery, treason, witchcraft, and even incest.

In the movie, The Other Boleyn Girl, Anne (Portman) attracts the attention of Henry (Bana) on a trip to their home. After a riding incident, his affections transfer to Mary (Johansson), who becomes his mistress. Mary doesn't want to sleep with Henry, as she is newly married to Henry Carey, but she does it for the good of her family. After Anne secretly marries Henry Percy, she is sent to France to think about what she's done. Mary becomes pregnant with the king's son, and to keep Henry's attention on their family, Anne is called back from France. Anne however, angry that Mary "stole" Henry's affections, and revealed her marriage to Percy to their parents, jumps at the chance to punish her sister. Henry falls madly in love with Anne, and in a matter of two or three scenes, breaks with Rome and marries her. We all know what happens from there.

Mary Boleyn was a renowned bed-hopper. Anne, who had originally been in the Netherlands at the court of Archduchess Margaret of Austria, met Mary in France as part of the wedding party of Henry's sister Mary Tudor. After a few months, the French king dies, and Mary Tudor makes the long trip back to England. Mary Boleyn becomes famous for sleeping around the French court, and is even called "A great whore. The most infamaous of all." by the new king, Francis I. Mary was then sent back to England in shame and disgrace, and was lucky enough to make a good marriage, and become a maid-of-honour to Katherine of Aragon. Soon after, Mary began an affair with Henry, her second royal lover. She did give birth to two children: Catherine Carey (born 1524) and Henry Carey (born 1526). Most historians now discount the theory that either child was fathered by Henry VIII, especially Henry Carey, as he was likely born long after the affair had ended. The rumor that he might have been Henry's was based on a comment that one man made about the resemblance between the two. The movie states that Henry Carey is in fact the son of the king, and completely ignores that Mary had a daughter two years earlier who was much more likely to have been Henry's.

Anne did not steal Henry from her sister. Mary was promiscuous, and was used as such by the king until he bored of her and threw her aside. Their affair was long over when Henry took notice in a completely un-interested Anne. Also, she didn't simply whisper sweet nothings of Reformation in his ear and he broke with Rome. Anne was powerful, but she was still only a woman in a mans world. It was Henry's decision to break with the Catholic Church, fueled by his up-and-coming Secretary, and passionate Protestant Thomas Cromwell. Anne, like her entire family, was a Protestant, but it was Henry's desire for a son, and to be rid of Katherine that was behind his decision. The Church of England wasn't created solely so that Henry would have ultimate control, but also to rid England of the massive amounts of corruption brought in by the Catholic Churches. After all, the holy houses were incredibly rich, while the people of England were incredibly poor.

Huge inaccuracies aside, the movie in general was simply very badly made. It rushed through a decade of information in a few scenes, and didn't allow the characters any development at all. Portman did a nice job with what she was provided, but the rest of the cast was seriously lacking. Jim Sturgess was wasted on the role of George Boleyn, who was nothing like his historical counterpart. Eric Bana was very good-looking but he made Henry seem almost bipolar. He loved Mary, didn't want Mary, loved Anne, hated Anne, and all in under two hours. And Johanssen was just ridiculous. My favorite scene of hers was after Anne was executed, and she just simply walks out of the palace with Princess Elizabeth, and raises her in the country. Not only did Mary not attempt to contact either of her siblings before their executions, but there's no evidence that she ever had any contact at all with her niece. As though she could just walk out with the daughter of the king. Elizabeth might have been declared a bastard, just as her sister Mary was, but she was still Henry's daughter.

Bias aside, the movie sucked, and don't even get me started on the book upon which it was based, because that's just crap. While Showtime's The Tudors is also full of historical inaccuracies, it does give a much better depiction of the relationship between Henry and Anne. Each season is ten hours long, so character development is not really a problem. And Natalie Dormer (Anne), whose Emmy snub has seriously pissed me off, brought me to tears with her pre-execution performance. Check it out.



Other notable horrible movies of 2008 (so far): Over Her Dead Body, The Love Guru, The Eye, The Ruins, Meet the Spartans, 10,000 BC, 27 Dresses, Mad Money, The Hottie and the Nottie,