Review of film: “THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL”

Review of film:   “THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL” -- Nothing seems to CHANGE much in Politics... 

                             [ RATING:  7.25 of 10 stars ] 

Date Rated: Feb 29, 2008 | Rel. Date: Feb 29, 2008:

[Based on an advance preview:]  This turned out to be considerably BETTER than I'd expected. I'd feared a lot of boring, stuffy, stilted-sounding Old English speeches designed to appear "important". Instead, the phraseology / writing was comparatively contemporary sounding (even if somewhat old-fashioned in "social" situations and usually not especially clever)…

…  The film has a lot of historical ACCURACY, and revolves around POLITICAL (and inter-personal) INTRIGUE in the time of Henry VIII (as previously told in part in "ANNE OF A THOUSAND DAYS" & other projects). While the acting (outside of SCARLETT JOHANSSON as Mary Boleyn) isn't anything that special, the conspiracies and maneuvering are fascinating, the costumes and set designs are impressively "period"-like, and the overall telling of the tales (-- the twists and turns of people and alliances, [inter-family & with "outsiders"], the unreliability of the "well-connected" & all--) held my interest.