‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ simmers in mediocrity

Let’s unpack this mediocre movie. It’s directed by Justin Chadwick. The script is by Peter Morgan, whose two previous films, The Queen and The Last King of Scotland, won top prizes at last years’ Academy Awards. It stars Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman. They are supposed to be sisters. They look nothing like sisters. Their mother, Kristin Scott Thomas, looks nothing like her daughters. And the daughters also have nothing in common with their father, Mark Rylance.

And it’s not just a matter of appearance, looking the same; it’s more a matter of acting as if you are related. All four don’t act in a way that makes it believable that they have spent more than a couple of weeks together. Johansson’s body language does not communicate with the body language of Natalie Portman. There is a distance between them that the director, the cinematographer, and the performance failed to conceal.

The film also stars Eric Bana, who played Bruce Banner in Ang Lee’s Hulk but here plays King Henry VIII. Nothing in Bana’s body communicates the power of a king, of a man who has God’s permission to dominate an entire country. Those who have watched Ray Winstone’s performance of the king in the TV program Henry VIII (also written by Peter Morgan) know the kind of language the body must use to communicate absolute power. The story of The Other Boleyn Girl: Johansson and Portman are sisters whose father talks them into abandoning their normal, aristocratic lives in the country and entering the court to become mistresses of the king. One, Johansson, gives the king a son; the other, Portman, a girl. And Portman pays a heavy price for her failure to give the king a boy. It’s good to be the king.

THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL DIR. JUSTIN CHADWICK | RATED PG-13 | OPENS FRI

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