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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
67
$9.99
75
24 City
66
Adoration
74
Afghan Star
48
Alien Trespass
56
American Violet
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57
Away We Go
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
62
Big Man Japan
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55
Brothers Bloom, The
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx
Call of the Wild
63
Cheri
62
Cherry Blossoms
63
Dead Snow
65
Departures
18
Downloading Nancy
58
Easy Virtue
70
End of the Line, The
77
Every Little Step
64
Examined Life
80
Food, Inc.
38
Gigantic
56
Girl from Monaco, The
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
87
Gomorrah
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Great Buck Howard, The
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx
Home
82
Hunger
91
Hurt Locker, The
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
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54
Is Anybody There?
71
Jerichow
58
Julia
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Lemon Tree
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Life is Hot in Cracktown
40
Limits of Control, The
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Little Ashes
64
Lymelife
50
Management
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Merry Gentleman, The
66
Moon
35
New York
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Not Forgotten
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Offshore
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O'Horten
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Outrage
40
Paris 36
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Pontypool
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Pressure Cooker
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Quiet Chaos
83
Revanche
67
Rudo y Cursi
86
Seraphine
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Sex Positive
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Shall We Kiss?
77
Sin Nombre
59
Sleep Dealer
74
Song of Sparrows, The
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
82
Sugar
84
Summer Hours
61
Sunshine Cleaning
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Surveillance
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Tennessee
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Tetro
64
Throw Down Your Heart
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Tokyo Sonata
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Tokyo!
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Tony Manero
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Treeless Mountain
88
Tulpan
74
Two Lovers
83
Tyson
83
U2 3D
60
Under Our Skin
69
Unmistaken Child
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
22
What Goes Up
45
Whatever Works
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
91
Hurt Locker, The
89
Goodbye Solo
88
Tulpan
87
Gomorrah
86
Seraphine
84
Summer Hours
83
U2 3D
83
Revanche
83
Tyson
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
82
Sugar
82
Hunger
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
81
Il Divo
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
80
Food, Inc.
80
Tokyo Sonata
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
78
O'Horten
77
Every Little Step
77
Sin Nombre
75
24 City
74
Treeless Mountain
74
Afghan Star
74
Two Lovers
74
Song of Sparrows, The
74
Lemon Tree
71
Pressure Cooker
71
Jerichow
70
Shall We Kiss?
70
Tony Manero
70
End of the Line, The
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
69
Unmistaken Child
67
$9.99
67
Rudo y Cursi
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
66
Adoration
66
Moon
65
Sex Positive
65
Departures
64
Outrage
64
Examined Life
64
Throw Down Your Heart
64
Lymelife
63
Tokyo!
63
Cheri
63
Dead Snow
63
Tetro
63
Great Buck Howard, The
62
Cherry Blossoms
62
Big Man Japan
62
Not Forgotten
61
Sunshine Cleaning
60
Under Our Skin
59
Sleep Dealer
58
Julia
58
Easy Virtue
57
Away We Go
57
Merry Gentleman, The
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
56
Girl from Monaco, The
56
American Violet
55
Brothers Bloom, The
54
Is Anybody There?
54
Pontypool
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
52
Quiet Chaos
50
Management
48
Alien Trespass
45
Whatever Works
42
Little Ashes
42
Tennessee
40
Limits of Control, The
40
Paris 36
38
Gigantic
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
35
New York
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
28
Surveillance
22
What Goes Up
18
Downloading Nancy
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
xx
Call of the Wild
xx
Home
xx
Offshore
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Other Boleyn Girl, The
Columbia Pictures (Sony)
 |
|
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for mature thematic elements, sexual content and some violent images
Starring
Natalie Portman,
Scarlett Johansson,
Eric Bana,
Kristin Scott Thomas,
Mark Rylance,
and
David Morrissey
Based on the best-selling novel by Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl is an engrossing and sensual tale of intrigue, romance, and betrayal set against the backdrop of a defining moment in history. Two sisters, Anne and Mary Boleyn, are driven by their ambitious father and uncle to advance the family's power and status by courting the affections of the King of England. Leaving behind the simplicity of country life, the girls are thrust into the dangerous and thrilling world of court life. What began as a bid to help their family develops into a ruthless rivalry between Anne and Mary for the love of the king. Initially, Mary wins King Henry's favor and becomes his mistress, bearing him an illegitimate child. But Anne--clever, conniving, and fearless--edges aside both her sister and Henry's wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon, in her relentless pursuit of the king. Despite Mary's genuine feelings for Henry, her sister Anne has her sights set on the ultimate prize: Anne will not stop until she is Queen of England. As the Boleyn girls battle for the love of a king--one driven by ambition, the other by true affection--England is torn apart. Despite the dramatic consequences, the Boleyn girls ultimately find strength and loyalty in each other, remaining forever connected by their bond as sisters. (Columbia)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Peter Morgan
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Justin Chadwick
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: June 10, 2008
Theatrical: February 29, 2008
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
115 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
UK |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
An absorbing, exciting costume drama that works as a historical romance, a family tragedy and a showcase for its young stars.
75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
The result is an entertainingly sudsy trip through early 16th century English history.
75
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
A classy romantic cocktail distinguished by its tart yet breezy bite.
75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
An enjoyable movie with an entertaining angle on a hard-to-resist period of history.
75
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
A richly appointed period piece, it features kingly tantrums, mistresses, bodices, roaring fireplaces, incest, and mutton. It also features sharply enunciated, period-perfect dialogue in which nary a contraction can be heard.
70
LA Weekly
Chuck Wilson
Stuck for years playing young women who are the idealized object of male desire (Portman and Johansson)-- flaw-free and, in Johansson's case, barely conscious -- they come alive in The Other Boleyn Girl, as if being bound up in costumer Sandy Powell's exquisite gowns has freed them from the tighter constraints of their own beauty.
70
Variety
Derek Elley
A sexy, good-looking political bodice-ripper with an almost flawless cast at the top of its game.
67
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Works both as an engagingly sordid meditation on protofeminism and contemporized sisterhood set in a time and a place where either/or were grounds for, at the very least, defenestration.
67
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Tasha Robinson
The film looks terrific, all Vermeer-style light/dark interplay and sleek design. And Portman is fantastic as the tempestuous Anne.
63
Premiere
Andrew Grant
Two-hours of trashy eye-candy that, while fast and loose with the truth, functions as a perfectly adequate divertissement in a time of year when studios tend to unleash their worst.
63
Chicago Tribune
Jessica Reaves
Eric Bana doesn’t have much to do as Henry VIII except play the monarch as an overgrown spoiled brat. He is, however, awfully nice to look at.
63
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Feels less like an epic drama about power and the power of love than an episode of a Masterpiece Theatre mini-series.
63
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
It's a terrific showcase for battling Boleyn babes Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman.
63
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
In Portman's dynamic performance you can see strength and vulnerability warring for Anne's soul. In this bedroom view of history, it's that image that sticks.
60
Empire
Will Lawrence
A rather titillating take on a racy historical novel, this is perhaps too ambitious in intent. More time, or more pruning (perhaps they should just have focused on The Boleyn girl), would have produced a richer and more enjoyable film.
60
The Hollywood Reporter
Ray Bennett
Shot in high definition and filmed at many historic locations, the film somehow still lacks the splendor of an epic, and its urgency to get on with the next plot point leaves much unexplained while context goes out the window.
60
Slate
Dana Stevens
For a movie whose story hinges almost entirely on sex, The Other Boleyn Girl is disappointingly demure.
50
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
A brisk feminist melodrama that is, historically speaking, a load of wank. It has the feel of a game of “telephone,” in which information is progressively mangled.
50
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
If you're indifferent to silly revisions of history and bad acting, you may enjoy The Other Boleyn Girl. I'm not, and I didn't.
50
Miami Herald
Connie Ogle
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.
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
What might have been delicious trash lacks the courage of its trashy convictions, and the result is high-born melodrama with the juice boiled out, so much dry cabbage on fine-china plate.
50
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
It's neither sexy enough to qualify as good trash nor serious enough to pass for history.
50
New York Daily News
Elizabeth Weitzman
Chadwick builds a brisk pace and sweeping scope that initially grab our interest. But this Anne's sole motivations are sex and greed, and the wild rumors that were designed to destroy her are treated here as gospel.
50
USA Today
Claudia Puig
Can't quite figure out what it wants to be.
At times it strains to be a stately period drama about 16th-century political intrigue. Then it devolves into soap opera muck and emerges as a rather tame bodice ripper.
50
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Not content to be a mildly diverting royal bodice-ripper, it spirals out of control into the kind of overwrought dramaturgy that's out of its league.
42
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
This rendering of the turbulent second marriage of England's King Henry VIII proves too heavy-footed for the old movie two-step of setting up a morality tale, then exploiting it for heat and titillation.
40
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Even by its own standards, the movie becomes increasingly macabre and ludicrous as Anne's machinations get the better of her, and everyone, including the audience, is left feeling shattered, shaken and vaguely unclean for having participated in all this.
40
The New York Times
Manohla Dargis
Forced to compete for kingly favors, the women were soon rivals, a contest that, in its few meagerly entertaining moments, recalls the sisterly love in “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?”
40
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
After covering much of its ground at a stylish canter, The Other Boleyn Girl finishes at a plod.
38
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
Not good enough to take seriously and, sadly, not bad enough to be any fun.
38
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
It's pretty hard to make a dull movie about Henry VIII and his complicated love life, but The Other Boleyn Girl, a failed Oscar contender, manages to do just that, with yawns to spare.
33
Portland Oregonian
M. E. Russell
The all-description storytelling leads to other problems, too, the worst being that "Boleyn" suffers from the same affliction as "The Golden Compass," where you're told about interesting stuff happening elsewhere in another movie you'd much rather be watching.
30
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
The most sterile of bodice-rippers, a genteel soap opera in which the sex and intrigue are so muted, so tasteful, that they practically blow off the screen in a scattering of dust.
10
Film Threat
Matthew Sorrento
The falling blade is the only element not missing the mark in this film. I wanted to call for the beheading after Act One, and spare the audience instead.
 The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 32 User Votes
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