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Sunday 12 October 2008

To catch a king

The Other Boleyn Girl
12A, Nationwide

Anyway, although the Duke first pushes Anne at the King, Henry claims Mary instead, bribing her husband to pretend nothing is amiss. Feeling overlooked, Anne fumes, rebels, is exiled to France and then returns as a total, full-on megabitch and prick-tease. Must be something in the water. She was perfectly nice before. Now, though, she is determined to seduce the King away from Mary, which she does, thereby turning England on its head. Actually, if this film is to be believed, Henry’s break from the Catholic Church happened not over three politically divisive years but in two scenes, because he is just so desperate to get into Anne’s knickers. These scenes go something like this:

King: I want to get into your knickers

Anne: You can’t. You have a Queen.

King: I’ve pushed the Queen aside. Now can I get into your knickers?

Anne: Nope.

King. I can’t divorce her. Rome wouldn’t let me.

Anne: Think about it.

King: I could, I suppose, break with Rome.

Worried Noble: But that would mean breaking with the Catholic Church!

Me, had I been there: Well spotted, worried Noble! Top marks!

Next scene:

King: I’ve broken with the Catholic Church.

Anne: Don’t be down about it. You can be head of your own Church, the Church of England!

King: So can I get into your knickers now?

Anne: OK, then.

Fair enough, but as there is absolutely no sexual chemistry, it’s hard enough to imagine he’d even bother to stop at the garage on his way home for a box of Milk Tray, let alone change the course of English history. Although Anne does eventually marry the King, she, too, fails to produce a male heir. She does at least, though, give birth to the baby girl who will one day grow up into Cate Blanchett.

Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth; now there was a royal romp that at least had some magnificence. This, as directed by Justin Chadwick, does not. The characters are not magnificent. Both Anne and her ‘plainer’ sister, Mary, are portrayed as vapid, parading round court rather like the Paris and Nicole of their day, while Portman’s and Johansson’s performances are too modern, too contrived. Morrissey is OK, but, when not being Duke of Exposition, he is pretty much left to lurk in dark corners with a look on his face that is sometimes worried, sometimes menacing or, in extreme circumstances, menacingly worried. My old Ladybird books bring history more to life than this does, and are certainly better written. This is cliché heaped on cliché — ‘It’s one thing to catch a king, another to keep him’ — and hopelessly artificial. ‘Let’s draw a line under this,’ says one of the girls at one point. Yes, I would concur. Let’s.

More articles from: Deborah Ross | this section

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