Based on Philippa Gregory’s 2001 novel, The Other Boleyn Girl takes a decidedly dark view of Anne Boleyn, mistress and eventually second wife of England’s King Henry VIII, but Natalie Portman, as Boleyn, isn’t up to the villainy. Portman is a delicate, winsome presence – she still looks cute even when she sneers, and there is a lot of sneering going on here. The rest of the cast is equally off tone, including Scarlett Johansson as Anne’s sister Mary (she looks like a deer in headlights, even when Mary is meant to be expressing something entirely different). Eric Bana’s King Henry, meanwhile, is absolutely Fabio-lous. Wearing enough robes to stock a carpet store but bare-chested beneath, he’s ready to burst from the cover of a romance novel at any moment.
