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Special Features
- Camera Tests with Narration by Director Justin Chadwick
- Director's Commentary
- Deleted & Extended Scenes
- Members of the Court: Character Biographies
- To Be A Lady - Court Etiquette featurette
- Translating History to the Screen - how Philippa Gregory's best selling book came to life
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
A tale of two sisters competing for the same king, The Other Boleyn Girl uses historical facts as window dressing for this work of fiction that is entertaining, if not wholly believable. Anne Boleyn (Natalie Portman) is the doe-eyed vixen ordered by her power-hungry uncle to bewitch King Henry VIII (Eric Bana). Her shy sister Mary (Scarlett Johansson) has always been in Anne's shadow; Anne is prettier, more accomplished, and desired by many men. So when the King picks Mary--the "other Boleyn girl"--as his mistress, Anne turns on her sister and schemes to become not only the King's consort, but his new queen. With a pair of American actresses in the lead roles and an Aussie portraying their hunky object of desire, the English accents are all over the place in this period piece with a modern feel. Though the Boleyn girls' mother points out that her "daughters are being traded like cattle for the advancement of men," it is Anne who ultimately throws her slight weight around to bully Henry into doing her bidding. When he begs her to give herself to him, Anne--wearing a Carrie Bradshaw-esque "B" pendant on her neck--counters, "Make me your Queen." Is the audience really supposed to believe that Henry the VIII--the most powerful man in the land--would divorce Catherine of Aragon, separate from the Catholic church, and put England in upheaval simply because Anne refused to sleep with him until he jumped through all her hoops? "I have torn this country apart for you," he hisses at her before finally getting his way. Based on Philippa Gregory's bestselling novel of the same name, The Other Boleyn Girl features an attractive cast and a familiar plot with some icky twists. Kieran McGuigan's cinematography is breathtaking and is as crucial to setting the film's tone as the dialogue. Actually, it fares better: Lines such as "Well? Did he have you?!" sound almost comical. But the sweeping shots of Henry's kingdom and the carefully framed close-ups of Portman and Johansson are breathtaking in their beauty and say what words simply cannot. --Jae-Ha Kim
Get to Know the Cast of The Other Boleyn Girl
(click on images to see more films from each actor)
 Natalie Portman (Anne Boleyn) |  Scarlett Johansson (Mary Boleyn) |
 Eric Bana (Henry Tudor) |  Jim Sturgess (George Boleyn) |  Kristin Scott Thomas (Lady Elizabeth Boleyn) |
Beyond The Other Boleyn Girl
 Paperback Book |  On Blu-ray |  The Soundtrack |
Stills from The Other Boleyn Girl (click for larger image)
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Product Description
Based on the best-selling novel, The Other Boleyn Girl is a captivating tale of intrigue, romance and betrayal starring Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, and Eric Bana. Two sisters, Anne (Portman) and Mary (Johansson), are driven by their ambitious family to seduce the king of England (Bana) in order to advance their position in court. What starts as an opportunity for the girls to increase their family fortune becomes a deadly rivalry to capture the heart of a king to stay alive.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
28 of 29 people found the following review helpful
By J. S. Lang
Format:DVD
Those of us over-40 folks remember fondly the great BBC mini-series of yesterday, The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth R, incredibly acted and scripted, albeit lacking in Hollywood glossiness. The Other Boleyn Girl delivers on the gloss but the acting is mediocre at best, the writing several steps below mediocre. I rather like Natalie Portman, but her variable English accent was distracting, to say the least. (Obviously there is some logic in casting English actors in such roles.) I didn't find Eric Bana particularly appealing (maybe we hetero males aren't easily swayed by an actor's looks), and the rape of Anne is unhistorical and was obviously included to spice up a rather dull movie. (Tip to movie-makers: sex can actually be very titillating when it's just suggested, and off-screen.) After seeing this movie on DVD, I found myself dragging my old Six Wives of Henry VIII tapes out of the closet and relishing the great acting and the intelligent scripts, and the great actress Dorothy Tutin as Anne is a pretty tough act to follow. I really cannot recommend The Other Boleyn Girl as entertainment, much less as history. If scriptwriters want to sex up historical dramas, fine, but at least give us some credible dialogue and some actresses who can sound consistently English.
47 of 53 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
First off, let me say I am not a fan of Philippa Gregory, mainly due to her blatant disregard for history (although she claims to do extensive research for her novels, she uses no primary sources (first rule of historical research = use primary sources) and her secondary sources (which from reading the book, she appears to have only skimmed over) are often outdated or don't stand up to the test of time). I watched the movie mainly to see the costumes (I'm a Tudor period fanatic) and to see if it would be better or worse than the book.
The Tudor period is a fascinating time, and it doesn't need to be changed or altered in order to make it more interesting. There's plenty of love, sex, betrayal, political scheming, etc. so I'm not sure why PG felt the need to completely alter the story so much.
I won't go into all of the historical inaccuracies here, if I did, I would be here all night. Besides, there are many other amazon reviewers who are better-spoken than me and have far more knowledge of the Tudor period than I do (I'm only a student), and they have written some wonderful reviews pointing out errors (head on over to the TOBG book page, or check out forums on IMDB).
My main problem with this movie was that it seemed much more like a TV Movie (Lifetime channel anybody?) than a Hollywood film with well-known, highly-paid actors and actresses. The Henry/Mary relationship was almost non-existent, they have a few sex scenes, but nothing to show that they might have actually cared for one another. Henry and Mary have TWO very short conversations before they sleep together. And this is supposed to be our heroine, who has fallen in love? This is preposterous even to romance novel readers. There is no character development or relationship development between the beginning of Henry and Mary's affair and Mary conceiving. So when Anne comes back and "steals" Henry away from Mary while she is pregnant, do we really feel that bad for Mary? Not really, since we haven't seen anything to show us that Mary is in love (at least in the novel there was an actual emotional relationship, one-dimensional as it was).
The one main thing that *really* put me off of this film was the rape scene with Henry and Anne. Henry certainly was not a wonderful guy, history has clearly shown us this, but is this scene necessary? As far as history goes, Anne held off Henry for many years, so a rape is very unlikely (not to mention she wasn't pregnant when she and Henry married secretly (winter 1532, second ceremony in London January 1533, Elizabeth born Sept 1533)). I'm not really sure if this scene is here to show us that "you'll get what's coming to you" if you act like a shrew, or if it's supposed to make us feel a hint of sympathy for Anne. Yes Henry and Anne's relationship (obviously) fell apart, but it fell apart over a period of years, not months. *SPOILER ALERT* Also, the ending with Mary storming into the castle and grabbing Elizabeth from her caretakers and walking out with her seems pretty preposterous. Henry had gotten rid of Anne, but he still did show regard for his children and made sure they were properly raised. Snatching Elizabeth, especially after the king has warned you he will not tolerate you, your pleas to him, or your family anymore, seems like asking for some major punishment to me. *END SPOILER*
Strangely enough, considering that Ms. Gregory considers herself a "feminist author," the only characters remotely resembling anything feminist was the Boleyn mother, Elizabeth, who encourages her daughters to be well-educated and shows her objection to the Boleyn-Howard males pimping out their daughters for political gain (gains which usually fell to the males), and Katherine of Aragon, who acts honorably and respectably at all times. I don't think these are the characters we are meant to admire, but Anne is made out to be a self-serving, conniving shrew and Mary is too meek and mousy to be likeable.
One major (non-historical) error: Mary is married to William Carey, but midway through the film William Stafford asks her to marry him and leave court with him. Um, what happened to Mary's husband (He died of the sweating sickness, but the film never shows this)?
I was hoping for some great costumes from this film, and I was very disappointed. The fabrics were very modern (some of them looked like 1970s curtains) and seemed very out of place. Natalie Portman basically wore the same version of a dress, just in different colored fabrics, through the majority of the film (same for Scarlett). Tudor fashion is amazing; the costume designers could have shown so much more variety with the costumes. The accents of Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson were incredibly bad. Portman's accent seems to have gotten worse from when she did V for Vendetta. Also, at times certain scenes were so dark that I had to readjust the settings on my screen (which I've never had a problem with).
The one positive thing about the film is that they chose to leave out the incest plot-line that was very strongly suggested in the book.
The Tudor period is a fascinating time, and it doesn't need to be changed or altered in order to make it more interesting. There's plenty of love, sex, betrayal, political scheming, etc. so I'm not sure why PG felt the need to completely alter the story so much.
I won't go into all of the historical inaccuracies here, if I did, I would be here all night. Besides, there are many other amazon reviewers who are better-spoken than me and have far more knowledge of the Tudor period than I do (I'm only a student), and they have written some wonderful reviews pointing out errors (head on over to the TOBG book page, or check out forums on IMDB).
My main problem with this movie was that it seemed much more like a TV Movie (Lifetime channel anybody?) than a Hollywood film with well-known, highly-paid actors and actresses. The Henry/Mary relationship was almost non-existent, they have a few sex scenes, but nothing to show that they might have actually cared for one another. Henry and Mary have TWO very short conversations before they sleep together. And this is supposed to be our heroine, who has fallen in love? This is preposterous even to romance novel readers. There is no character development or relationship development between the beginning of Henry and Mary's affair and Mary conceiving. So when Anne comes back and "steals" Henry away from Mary while she is pregnant, do we really feel that bad for Mary? Not really, since we haven't seen anything to show us that Mary is in love (at least in the novel there was an actual emotional relationship, one-dimensional as it was).
The one main thing that *really* put me off of this film was the rape scene with Henry and Anne. Henry certainly was not a wonderful guy, history has clearly shown us this, but is this scene necessary? As far as history goes, Anne held off Henry for many years, so a rape is very unlikely (not to mention she wasn't pregnant when she and Henry married secretly (winter 1532, second ceremony in London January 1533, Elizabeth born Sept 1533)). I'm not really sure if this scene is here to show us that "you'll get what's coming to you" if you act like a shrew, or if it's supposed to make us feel a hint of sympathy for Anne. Yes Henry and Anne's relationship (obviously) fell apart, but it fell apart over a period of years, not months. *SPOILER ALERT* Also, the ending with Mary storming into the castle and grabbing Elizabeth from her caretakers and walking out with her seems pretty preposterous. Henry had gotten rid of Anne, but he still did show regard for his children and made sure they were properly raised. Snatching Elizabeth, especially after the king has warned you he will not tolerate you, your pleas to him, or your family anymore, seems like asking for some major punishment to me. *END SPOILER*
Strangely enough, considering that Ms. Gregory considers herself a "feminist author," the only characters remotely resembling anything feminist was the Boleyn mother, Elizabeth, who encourages her daughters to be well-educated and shows her objection to the Boleyn-Howard males pimping out their daughters for political gain (gains which usually fell to the males), and Katherine of Aragon, who acts honorably and respectably at all times. I don't think these are the characters we are meant to admire, but Anne is made out to be a self-serving, conniving shrew and Mary is too meek and mousy to be likeable.
One major (non-historical) error: Mary is married to William Carey, but midway through the film William Stafford asks her to marry him and leave court with him. Um, what happened to Mary's husband (He died of the sweating sickness, but the film never shows this)?
I was hoping for some great costumes from this film, and I was very disappointed. The fabrics were very modern (some of them looked like 1970s curtains) and seemed very out of place. Natalie Portman basically wore the same version of a dress, just in different colored fabrics, through the majority of the film (same for Scarlett). Tudor fashion is amazing; the costume designers could have shown so much more variety with the costumes. The accents of Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson were incredibly bad. Portman's accent seems to have gotten worse from when she did V for Vendetta. Also, at times certain scenes were so dark that I had to readjust the settings on my screen (which I've never had a problem with).
The one positive thing about the film is that they chose to leave out the incest plot-line that was very strongly suggested in the book.
26 of 28 people found the following review helpful
By M. A. Bechaz
Format:DVD
Many times whilst watching this movie, I found myself wishing I was watching the much better 'Anne of the 1000 Days'. 'The Other Boleyn Girl' is a travesty of a movie.
Scarlett Johansen seemed to have the acting range of a cold, dead fish. Natalie Portman did better, but frankly, she was fighting a losing battle against very poor scripting. And Eric Bana...well, as an Aussie, I have of course taken the oath of allegience to always adore Eric Bana, who like Hugh Jackman is one of the nicest guys you could hope to meet. But Eric has a very strong accent, of the type that many people who hail from Melbourne's northern suburbs do, and he just can't seem to hide it, no matter what. When he tries to sound English, it just makes me cringe. I was almost expecting King Henry VIII to crack open a beer, throw another shrimp on the barbie and call Anne 'a beaut sheila'. Ugh! Sorry, Eric, you're a top bloke, but I can say with all honesty that Amy Winehouse would have made a better King of England, even with the problem of trying to get a crown on over the wig.
The film made me angry because it was so historically inaccurate. No film better deserved to have the 'This movie is a work of fiction and bears no resemblance to any persons or events ever etc.' disclaimer appear in its closing credits. Worse, I sensed a strong bias from the writer (the writer of the book this was based on, assumedly), in that she seemed to be living vicariously through the character of Mary, and wanted her to be all things good, whilst her sister Anne had to appear as all things bad, assumedly to make Mary appear even better by comparison.
And as for the scene with Anne and her brother (and anyone who's seen the movie will know exactly what scene I mean), well, that was just ICKY!
I like my historical dramas to have at least some resemblance to actual history. And I like them to seem realistic and believable, not just like soap operas or bad romance novels, with inane dialogue and two-dimensional, illogically-constructed characters. I mean, in this movie, King Henry VIII is a thin, fairly stupid, silent and moody bloke who can be manipulated by the most transparent of women's wiles, who makes decisions on the merest hint of a whim, without a real thought of his own in his pretty little head. If King Henry VIII had been as much of a moron in real life as he was scripted to be in this movie, I doubt he would have survived beyond the cradle, let alone to become one of the most powerful, notorious, world-changing kings in history.
Oh, and one final thing -- if you're going to spend nearly half a movie boring us viewers by showing women in bed either in labour or miscarrying, at least get the details right. Elizabeth was a redhead, yet for some reason, the baby playing her at her birth had BLACK hair!
Scarlett Johansen seemed to have the acting range of a cold, dead fish. Natalie Portman did better, but frankly, she was fighting a losing battle against very poor scripting. And Eric Bana...well, as an Aussie, I have of course taken the oath of allegience to always adore Eric Bana, who like Hugh Jackman is one of the nicest guys you could hope to meet. But Eric has a very strong accent, of the type that many people who hail from Melbourne's northern suburbs do, and he just can't seem to hide it, no matter what. When he tries to sound English, it just makes me cringe. I was almost expecting King Henry VIII to crack open a beer, throw another shrimp on the barbie and call Anne 'a beaut sheila'. Ugh! Sorry, Eric, you're a top bloke, but I can say with all honesty that Amy Winehouse would have made a better King of England, even with the problem of trying to get a crown on over the wig.
The film made me angry because it was so historically inaccurate. No film better deserved to have the 'This movie is a work of fiction and bears no resemblance to any persons or events ever etc.' disclaimer appear in its closing credits. Worse, I sensed a strong bias from the writer (the writer of the book this was based on, assumedly), in that she seemed to be living vicariously through the character of Mary, and wanted her to be all things good, whilst her sister Anne had to appear as all things bad, assumedly to make Mary appear even better by comparison.
And as for the scene with Anne and her brother (and anyone who's seen the movie will know exactly what scene I mean), well, that was just ICKY!
I like my historical dramas to have at least some resemblance to actual history. And I like them to seem realistic and believable, not just like soap operas or bad romance novels, with inane dialogue and two-dimensional, illogically-constructed characters. I mean, in this movie, King Henry VIII is a thin, fairly stupid, silent and moody bloke who can be manipulated by the most transparent of women's wiles, who makes decisions on the merest hint of a whim, without a real thought of his own in his pretty little head. If King Henry VIII had been as much of a moron in real life as he was scripted to be in this movie, I doubt he would have survived beyond the cradle, let alone to become one of the most powerful, notorious, world-changing kings in history.
Oh, and one final thing -- if you're going to spend nearly half a movie boring us viewers by showing women in bed either in labour or miscarrying, at least get the details right. Elizabeth was a redhead, yet for some reason, the baby playing her at her birth had BLACK hair!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
loved it
fantastic movie, great actors, about time someone put Ann Boleyn's story out there, shows her as a more sympathetic light than history does
Published 3 days ago by sfishome2me
5.0 out of 5 stars
OTHER BOLEYN GIRL
GOOD BACKGROUND FOR THE TUDORS-I HAVE FOLLOWED THE TUDORS AND ALSO READ ABOUT ALL OF THE FAMILY-VERY INTERESTING HISTORY LESSON
Published 25 days ago by diane m. mush
5.0 out of 5 stars
review
i liked it very much. it was packaged well and it was just what was described. good job. i will order agian. i just wish there were more.
Published 1 month ago by christina mosier
5.0 out of 5 stars
LOVED the movie GREAT plot
movie was effing awesome, i watched it about 3 times, once for myself, and 2 other times because ppl who walked by in my house ended up getting sucked into the well done drama. Read more
Published 1 month ago by S
2.0 out of 5 stars
Boleyn
Although I am fascinated by History and especially by the British History this movie is not what I was hoping it would.
Published 1 month ago by Aikaterina Hagood
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great movie
Great story, told well with excellent dialogue. The acting is superior from all characters. Sets and costumes are fantastic and the cinematography is grand.
Published 1 month ago by irishiii68
1.0 out of 5 stars
Awful
If you're a Tudor freak, this movie will offend you. The beginning and end are nonsensical (if you're on the scaffold, don't expect a last minute phone call from Hal). Read more
Published 2 months ago by Candyapple Whine
1.0 out of 5 stars
Terrible!!
Does not follow the book AT ALL!!!! I felt like it RUSHED through and skipped so many amazing and important pieces of the book. Read more
Published 2 months ago by lv2tumble13
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you like history, you'll like this movie
The director played with the historical facts a little bit; but then again, who knows exactly what happened that long ago. All in all, it was a really good movie.
Published 2 months ago by Jonathan P. Ezell
3.0 out of 5 stars
But It's very pretty to watch....
THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL suffers from overexposure to the passion for all things Tudor that has produced multiple novels, television series, and films that range from great to... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Grady Harp
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