The Other Boylen Girl

The previews for The Other Boylen Girl looked really good. And with Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson as the female leads I was definitely seeing this movie in theaters. With the previews and the cast I did run the risk of getting my expectations for the movie too high. That did not happen. The movie and the performances were every bit as good as I was expecting and then some.

I did find it interesting that while it's called The Other Boylen Girl it's not as much about Mary as it is about Anne. And most people have a tiny bit of knowledge about the story of Anne Boylen. I must admit I had no idea how devious she truly was though. Although that deviousness was not of her own making. I mean her family did bring it upon themselves in someways.

I also find in interesting how back then it was not frowned upon for a countries leader to bed other women. In fact it seems that it was quite often frowned upon if he didn't bed women other than his wife. Even more interesting is if the Queen doesn't give the King his male heir he is expected to find a mistress or several and keep impregnating them until he gets his presicous boy. Funny too how in this case after all things played out it would be King Henry's second daughter who would become one of the strongest and most respected leaders in all of Englands history.

Sorry that got off track from the movie itself. So the movie was very well put together. It had really good pacing. At least for the majority of the movie. The last little bit seemed to drag a bit. None of the movie seemed to be overdone. Everything from the costuming, to the sets, to the dialogue and acting was very well restrained. Sometime actors have a tendancy to go a little over the top in how they deliver their lines in movies like this but, that didn't happen here. I do attribute that to the fact that none of the other stuff in the movie was over the top.

The acting was fantastic. Scarlett didn't have quite as much to do as I might have thought she would but, for a supporting performance it was very good. Now Natalie she had a very wide range of emotions to cover and she did it superbly. She one hundred percent found and owned the character of Anne Boylen. It'll be interesting to see if this performance is strong enough to be remembered at the end of the year when it is awards time.


A couple of small spoilers coming up:

There was one part of the story that they really left hanging. At least for me. Some people might have gotten so into the rest of the movie that they forgot about it all together. At the time that they went to court and the King started his affair with Mary, she was married. He asked her if she'd mind if he sent her husband away. And apparently he did since we never saw him again. We also never heard of him again. He did not rejoin her when she was sent back to the family estate with her son. There was never any mention of him being killed or them getting a divorce/annulment. Yet in the end she married another man. I do wish they would have give that a little more thought and wrapped it up a little better.


Overall this was a fantastic movie that I would very much recommend. I saw a matinee but, would have been fine with paying full price to see it. It is worth the price of admission.