"The Other Boleyn Girl"

On Friday Bruce and I went to see "The Other Boleyn Girl." We don't get to the movies much and I am not an experienced critic, but I very much enjoyed the film. Somewhere along the line I may have read about Mary Boleyn who was also mistress to Henry VIII and bore him a son. However he couldn't acknowledge the child because he was still married to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. In the meantime, while Mary was on bedrest, the more ambitious Ann won him over, supposedly by teasing him and refusing to give herself to him unless they were married.

I doubted that was historically accurate as I suspect breaking with the Catholic Church was Henry's idea and not Ann's. But in any case he broke with the Church and established his own Church of England which permitted divorce, and he sent Catherine home. He married Ann, but according to the film he already disliked her and only wanted her to slake his lust. She miscarried a boy, supposedly, that only Mary and their brother George knew about.

Then, the fatal mistake, Ann decided to try to make a son with her brother, on the premise that at least the baby would resemble her and she could pass it off as Henry's own. Now, when I read up on it, it seemed that the charge of incest was trumped up and used to get rid of her since she too had failed in her purpose as a brood sow to bear the king a male heir. George was executed for a crime history says he did not commit, and Ann was beheaded two days later. Of them all, Mary lived out her life peacefully and happily. And Ann's child, Elizabeth, was Henry's heir after all and ruled England for 45 years.

So really, Ann Boleyn lost her head because of sexism, plain and simple. Henry couldn't imagine that a daughter could rule as queen, instead of a son as king.

In the film, the Boleyn father, Thomas, was portrayed as an ambitious man without principles who was willing to pimp his daughters to get ahead at court. His wife was the one who saw through the whole thing and warned him time and again that he was putting the entire family at risk, for treason was what the king and his advisors made it.

I pitied her, because she had no power to stop what her husband was doing to her children, and she ended up seeing two of them die before her.

The early scenes between Mary and Henry were tender and sensual. It seemed he really cared for her, but he was a spoiled absolute monarch who let his head be turned by the next woman and the next. Probably Mary was lucky that he turned his attentions away from her, and she ended up marrying someone else after her first husband died and living happily with him (though, history says this marriage ruined her fortunes, she was still happy with her husband).

The historical truths, even though of course there was fiction mixed in, made this an interesting film. I love the costumes and pageantry of that era, and the acting was good as well. So I definitely recommend this film, especially to any history buffs out there.