Movie: The Other Boleyn Girl

The picture and link to the right are associated with the book by Philippa Gregory, but last night I had the opportunity to watch BBC’s much-shortened version of the novel. It was a tag-along extra on the old “Six Wives of Henry VIII” miniseries that I rented a few weeks ago. That miniseries sucked, but I kept the fourth disk on my Netflix list just so I could see this extra movie.

Starring Natasha McElhone in the role of Mary Boleyn, the movie follows the story of Anne Boleyn’s older sister who was actually a bedmate of the king long before Anne. The book makes plain that it is conjecture based very loosely on historical knowledge. The book is a GREAT read despite it’s messing about a bit with the facts, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Sadly, the movie cut out most of the interesting details from the book and even changed Mary’s character slightly. The movie also drastically changed Anne and George Boleyn (their brother) in the movie. I did like the small “interviews” that the filmmaker did where the characters spoke to the camera – similar to the diary room sessions we see on reality tv now. It made the movie more interesting in that regard.

Well-filmed and certainly well-acted, it was a nice diversion and helped feed my love of all things Tudor England.