The Other Boleyn Girl (PG-13) **

By Connie Ogle

Based on a novel built on historical fact, The Other Boleyn Girl is more overwrought soap opera than serious costume drama, but nobody involved in making the film seems to understand this. With murder, adultery, excommunication, stillbirths, incest, beheadings and some truly astonishing headgear all playing large roles, this film should be, if nothing else, campy, giggly fun, despite its less-than-happy foregone conclusion. Think Cruel Intentions in period costume, or better yet, Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, which managed to take its subject matter lightly and seriously at the same time.

But instead, The Other Boleyn Girl is carried out solemnly and somewhat dully as it tells the story of Boleyn sisters Anne (Natalie Portman) and Mary (Scarlett Johansson) and how their father and uncle basically shoved them into prostituting themselves to King Henry VIII (a wooden Eric Bana, whose short hair style does not benefit his protruding ears).

First willing, flirtatious Anne catches the king’s eye, but then he meets gentle Mary, the less spectacular sister (hardly the most appropriate role for the sensual Johansson). Immediately Henry summons Mary to court for his pleasure despite her recent marriage. Anne is furious and makes it her business to interfere in what presumably is true love on Mary’s part. Fortunately for Anne, Henry isn’t much more than a horny frat boy. It is, after all, good to be the king.

Here’s the problem: the boyish Portman, while clearly attractive, is simply unable to heave her breasts over her bodice to become the irresistible sexual magnet Anne is made out to be. She looks like a kid playing dress-up. Maybe the curvier Johansson would have fared better in the role, though it’s hard to tell; she’s so mild and forgiving here she practically disappears from the screen. Neither one appears capable of pulling off this sort of period drama.

Amid all this regrettable casting stands Kristin Scott Thomas as the girls’ mother, the only person appalled by her husband’s trafficking in sex and ambition. Even in hideous costume she demands more attention than either of the younger women, and one can only hope they picked up a pointer or two on the set about dignity and subtlety in a performance.

England’s tumultuous break with the Roman Catholic Church is dispensed with in a few sentences, and things turn ugly, as we know. Anne did leave Henry with a daughter, Elizabeth. Good news for little Elizabeth: Despite her gender she ruled England for more than 40 years. Thank heavens there are better movies than The Other Boleyn Girl about what she got up to as one of Britain’s greatest monarchs.

This story was originally published February 28, 2008 at 4:02 AM.