Saturday Night At The Movies

In spite of what the critics have said, The Boleyn Girl is not a bad movie. It is not as good as the book...but still pretty good.

I had my doubts going into the movie, as let's face it...in what world would any guy ever pick Natalie Portman over Scarlett Johansson? (Not saying that Natalie is anything but a beautiful woman but it seems that almost every guy in the world is lusting after Scarlett at the moment.) So I had my doubts about the casting. Not about Eric Bana of course but we will get to that in a moment.

Yet it worked. Scarlett was perfect in role as Mary. Perhaps it was the absence of bright red lipstick that she never without in real life, but she managed to pull off the role as the sweet Mary. And Natalie was perfect as Anne. She managed to pull off of coldness and ruthlessness that her character needed so that it made sense. Dino and I believed it anyway.

I did not buy Jim Sturgess as George, nor did I buy Eddie Redmayne as William Stafford but neither fact mattered. Their screen time was limited and besides...Eric Bana was perfect as King Henry.

He managed to be completely desirable and despicable at the same time. He absolutely made the movie. If King Henry looked anything like Eric Bana, no wonder he was able to get so many women to ruin their lives from him. Of course the crown helped but the good lucks couldn't have hurt.

As I watched the movie, I couldn't help but feel badly for both women. More so for Mary and than for Anne but still, I felt for both of them. It is not easy to be a woman in love with a man who is far greater than she.

The movie did not follow the book completely but it was close. It left out a lot of stuff, but I am sure that it had to for time. It didn't go completely off track and I was grateful for that. I would have been super pissed if Anne would have walked away in the end. I suppose that the fact that it would have gone against documented history is what probably prevented that from happening but I had my doubts for a minute.

I don't know that I would recommend paying full price to see this movie. It has a love story for the women and scandal for the men yet it is missing the "WOW!" factor. It didn't spend enough time developing the love story between either of the sisters and Henry, nor did go into enough depth of the scandals to make it fun. Maybe save it for DVD night on the couch.

Finally, enjoy another pic from the My MC & Me collection.