Imagine if you and a bunch of your friends decided to engage in some sort of historical reenactment. You go out and buy a bunch of high end costumes, and you even fly out to the location where the events you're acting out happened, even though they look drastically different nowadays. It seems perfectly acceptable for you and your friends because you're just having fun. However, imagine what happens when a bunch of A-list actors do more or less the same....not so good. This is the chief problem with "The Other Boleyn Girl", a lower budget period piece that appears to have maxed out its budget solely on costumes; it feels like a bunch of actors who decided to play dress-up, rather than an actual film; most of it appears to have been shot on location, but many of the buildings appear to have undergone almost no "fixing" in order to make them look more acceptable for the time frame of the film. Though the cast turns in solid work (including surprisingly good work from Natalie Portman as the scheming Anne Boleyn), there's an inescapable aura of "made-for-TV-movie" that hangs over the entire production. Not helping matters are director Justin Chatwick's limp direction and a surprisingly uneven script from Peter Morgan (who wrote the Oscar nominated screenplay for "The Queen"). Where the film does succeed though, is in the above mentioned acting, and the fact that it's quite hard to make this part of history boring. The rivalry between Anne and Mary Boleyn (whether real, fictional, or merely exaggerated) is interesting to watch and the film never becomes boring. Portman and Scarlet Johannson play off each other well as conniving Anne and gentle Mary, which is good because they are the core of the film. In the end, the movie ends up being something of a mixed bag; the actors are all trying hard, but the script, directing, and cinematography all seem rather lazily done, resulting in a "fine" (and interesting) but hardly stand out period piece.
Grade: B-/C+
Nominations: Best Actress - Natalie Portman(#4), Best Supporting Actress - Kirsten Scott Thomas(#5), Best Costume Design(#3), Best Original Score - Paul Cantelon(#3)
Number of 2008 films seen: 10
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