The Other Boleyn Girl

By Mina Hochberg, amNewYork Movie Critic
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In The Other Boleyn Girl, sisters Anne (Natalie Portman, left) and Mary Boleyn (Scarlett Johansson, right) are rivals for the love of King Henry VIII.

Heaving bosom alert! This story of Anne Boleyn's rise from the ranks of minor nobility and her subsequent fall to the chopping block is a sweeping Tudor soap opera, from the bethrothals and betrayals to the chin-stroking villain.

Natalie Portman plays Anne, the doomed coquette, with Scarlett Johansson as her plain sister, Mary. (In Hollywood, "plain" is conveyed by denuding a face of all makeup.) At first, the two are inseparable, sharing girly giggles and vows of sisterly love. But when word gets out that King Henry VIII ( Eric Bana), unhappy with his wife's inability to spawn an heir, is looking for a mistress to give him a son, their little sisterhood enters shaky ground.

Papa Boleyn, a social climber, tries to pimp Anne out to the King. But the King's loins lead him to Mary, instead. He beds and impregnates her, but as Mary's womb balloons, the King loses interest and gets seduced by Anne, who's been smarting in the corner, waiting for a chance to snatch His Majesty away. King Henry's slobbering infatuation leads him to annul his marriage, breaking ties with the Roman Catholic Church and causing upheaval among the people.

Even if you're partial to pomp and drama, it's sometimes hard to see this as little more than fodder for an "Epic Movie 2." From the expository scenes to the abuse of suspense-ratcheting horse-gallop sound effects, you can see the emotional beats and plot turns a mile away. And you feel for Bana as he sulks around in his Tudor get-up, emasculated by the drippy lines of a man who's lost all his cojones to a woman. You kind of wish the script had given him a little more to chew on.

Is the movie compelling? Yes, if you surrender to the theatrics. This is a titillating story when all is said and done, and the actors are clearly easy on the eyes. (One can only imagine how all this would have played out in an age of "Access Hollywood.") But the minute Anne becomes a crazy-eyed regalomaniac, a lot of history starts to happen at once, and the film bows under the weight of too much crammed-in factual information.

Directed by Justin Chadwick. Starring Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana, Jim Sturgess, Kristin Scott Thomas, Mark Rylance