The Other Boleyn Girl.

"Directed by Justin Chadwick from a script by Peter Morgan (The Queen), The Other Boleyn Girl is a brisk feminist melodrama that is, historically speaking, a load of wank," writes David Edelstein in New York.

"Of course you should never judge a book by its cover, nor a film by its release date," writes Sean Burns in the Philadelphia Weekly. "And yet it's no surprise that The Other Boleyn Girl is perfectly dreadful. Riddled with loud unintentional laughs and inexplicable filmmaking decisions, it rivals Elizabeth: The Golden Age as far as bodice-ripping, historically nonsensical lunacy goes. But at the same time it remains far too glum and uptight to ever truly qualify as camp, existing in a muddled unentertaining limbo."

Updated through 3/1.

"With much of its story already known, Boleyn must rely on its leading ladies to keep us interested, but neither [Scarlett] Johansson nor [Natalie] Portman convince us that they are sisters - or British for that matter - and get mired in Chadwick's melodrama," writes Doug Strassler in the L Magazine.

But for Chuck Wilson, writing in the LA Weekly, "they come alive in The Other Boleyn Girl, as if being bound up in costumer Sandy Powell's exquisite gowns has freed them from the tighter constraints of their own beauty. When Chadwick and ace cinematographer Kieran McGuigan move in close on Mary's and Anne's faces - and that's the abiding action of the movie - the actresses practically tremble with inner life, and who'd have expected that?"

"The Other Boleyn Girl teeters hilariously between feminine empowerment and high camp, but it definitely won't bore you," writes Alonso Duralde for MSNBC.

"Chadwick goes for a romantic effect in this royals melodrama, pouring on the chiaroscuro and sweeping strings under the 'love' scenes," writes Armond White in the New York Press. "But its success depends upon seeing the Boleyn girls as privileged noble victims. No doubt this mawkish post-feminism is a commercial reflex following Princess Diana's tabloid martyrdom."

The Los Angeles Times' Rachel Abramowitz sees a trend: "In the next year, moviegoers will also get to see Emily Blunt as a young Queen Victoria, Keira Knightley as Georgiana, the 18th century Duchess of Devonshire, and Johansson, again, this time as Mary Queen of Scots. That's on top of The Tudors miniseries on Showtime and Helen Mirren and Cate Blanchett in cinematic renditions of the Virgin Queen."

Online viewing tip. A Borders video interview blowout. Thanks, Jerry!

Update: "It's got all the required upholstery, meticulous costumes, and pretty castles, but of the stars, only Johansson's innocence occasionally convinces when director Justin Chadwick goes in for the tempestuous close-ups," writes Bill Weber at Slant. "The movie's last-ditch attempt at valorizing family loyalty after a couple hours of miscarriages, queasily averted incest, and beheadings is trumped by an epiphanic final shot of toddler and future queen Elizabeth."

Updates, 2/29: "It's a marvel that something that feels so inert should have so much frenetic action," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "Shot in high-definition video with a murky brown palette (perhaps to suggest tea-stained porcelain and teeth), the film is both underwritten and overedited."

"In its pulpy, soft-focused way, The Other Boleyn Girl is almost feminist, showing how the matter-of-fact royal traffic in women grinds down the sisters and their horrified but powerless mother (Kristin Scott Thomas)," writes Slate's Dana Stevens. "But feminist subtext aside, the movie is primarily an excuse for ogling some blue-chip actor-flesh."

"For a film about lust, it's oddly chaste: Neither Mary's couplings with Henry (gauzy, soft-focus affairs conducted to murmuring strings) nor Anne's (a quasi-rape) could properly be called 'sexy,'" writes the New Republic's Christopher Orr. "And the film's tidy moralism might have been borrowed from an after school special in which the Good Girl and the Bad Girl vie for the love of a Popular Boy - only with more miscarriages."

"Art-directed in gloomy House of Tudor colors, The Other Boleyn Girl offers high-toned pulp for those who like to imagine themselves superior to ranch-colonial Desperate Housewives, and who don't like to feel so guilty about the pleasure they get from vicarious lust and treachery," writes Jim Emerson. "Movies like this are designed to let the art-house crowd revel in marginally educative vulgarity without getting their sensibilities dirty."

"My personal experience of historical films has been a happy one," writes Antonia Fraser in the London Times. "In 2006 I was lucky enough to have my biography of Marie Antoinette made into a film of the same name, written and directed by Sofia Coppola." She's happy with the results; and with this movie, too.

But Brandon Harris finds it "overly slick, empty-headed, bodice-ripping rubbish from start to finish."

For Salon's Stephanie Zacharek, it's "the most sterile of bodice-rippers, a genteel soap opera in which the sex and intrigue are so muted, so tasteful, that they practically blow off the screen in a scattering of dust."

The AV Club's Tasha Robinson finds it "a fitting prequel to the Elizabeth movies: It's pretty, passionate, and full of historical poppycock."

"Not content to be a mildly diverting royal bodice-ripper, it spirals out of control into the kind of overwrought dramaturgy that's out of its league," writes Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times.

Gill Pringle profiles Portman for the Independent.

"No question that Portman's and Johansson's faces merit microscopic attention, but the film has a cramped feeling that turns every urgent, conspiratorial confidence into an italicized shout," writes Time's Richard Corliss. "That's a shame, because the movie has some excellent supporting skullduggery by Mark Rylance as the Boleyn girls' father, as well as a truly imperious turn by Kristin Scott Thomas as their mother. (She also played Johansson's mother in The Horse Whisperer.)"

Updates, 3/1: "With its orgy of colorful costumes and golden rays of sunlight streaming in from every window, The Other Boleyn Girl is two-hours of trashy eye-candy that, while fast and loose with the truth, functions as a perfectly adequate divertissement in a time of year when studios tend to unleash their worst," writes Andrew Grant for Premiere.

"You know what? Just read the Wikipedia entry on Anne Boleyn," suggests Mike Russell. "Not only is it more illuminating than The Other Boleyn Girl, chances are you'd be able to write a more entertaining script from it than the one used by director Justin Chadwick."

Posted by dwhudson at February 28, 2008 3:00 AM