Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #238 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-10-06
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 90 minutes

Synopsis
An extraordinary tale of sex, passion and royal intrigue. This is the little-known story of Mary Boleyn who was mistress to King Henry VIII before he married her older sister, Anne. Inspired by Philippa Gregory's novel of the same name, this film is about great families jockeying for position and using their daughters as pawns in a deadly game. Set during one of the most notorious periods in British regal history, it is a powerful narrative and at its heart is the relationship between two rivals - the Boleyn sisters.

Customer Reviews

Stick to the book
The novel of "The Other Boleyn Girl" is a bit of a guilty pleasure. I've re-read it many times and can see why it would make an excellent subject for dramatisation so why is it so difficult to get right? OK, so certain things may have to be altered to suit modern sensibilites. The fact that Mary was in her early teens when she started her affair with Henry wouldn't sit comfortably with your average cinema audience so I can understand that being altered.

I wanted to like this largely because I didn't like the Hollywood version. The chauvanist in me wanted to think that the BBC could do it better (it usually does after all.) Sadly, I was disapointed. The whole thing seemed colourless and lacking in the sense of drama and excitement that the book portrays so well. As for the shots to camera I half expected Davina McCall to say, "Mary Boleyn , you have been evicted. You have 3 minutes to leave the Big Brother House". Just didn't work for me. Neither did some of the casting. Unlike some of the other reviewers I'm not a fan of Jodhi May. Anne Boleyn needs to be played by someone with charisma, someone that you can imagine Henry VIII causing a schism with the Catholic Church over. For me, Jodhi May looks like a rather gormless wet lettuce and certainly not worth risking your eternal soul over. Maybe it's just her (she spoiled "Tipping the Velvet" for me as well) Steven MacIntosh was also miscast as George Boleyn. George needs to be a sensualist, a rogue. Steven McIntosh was....colourless (that word again.)

So, no I wouldn't recommend this any more than I would the Hollywood version. I would love to see the BBC do a decent serialised version of this. Spend some money on it and get the casting right. In the meantime I'll just re-read the book.

Was it really worth all those five stars?
After I've read the book and fell in love with it, I had to see the Hollywood film and was of course disappointed. Then I found this film here at Amazon and read the reviews claiming it was much better than the US-version. Since I've lately been watching a lot of Jane Austen adaptations from BBC I was ready to believe that it was that good. But I was sorely disappointed. Not only were the actors not much better than Scarlett & Co, the staging was very abrupt, cutting from one scene to the next without any fluency in the story. If you had not read the book, I suppose you would have been lost. Many important persons were cut out from the script, such as Cardinal Wolsey and Lady Rochford (George Boleyn's wife). I suppose making a 90 min. film from this book is just not possible. But to add to the disappointment, the quality of the picture was extremely bad. I was wondering if it was one of those pirate copies from Asia, filmed at the theatre. So, even though the price was all right I still recommend not to buy it.

Picture quality a major problem
I am unable to comment on the film as the second copy we ordered is on its way back to Amazon. Just a note then to warn about the picture quality which is too grainy to watch with any enjoyment.