The Other Boleyn Girl

This was really a disappointment. If I had not read the book, I'd have been totally confused, because so much was left out or just plain incorrect. The story jumped around-no continuity at all.

I guess because I did not read the book first, I loved this movie.

I can see that many people rated their dissappointment based on reading the novel and comparing the movie. I find that unfair.

Although I know how they feel. It's impossible to reduce the breadth of a novel within the time restrictions of a feature film.

No matter what you believe is the "real" story regarding the Boleyn family, this movie was based on the book by Phillipa Gregory and followed very closely to it. The book is very dense and packed with various events and drama but the movie could only capture but so much in its two hour alotted timeframe and in my opinion it captured the main points of the book. I read the book before I saw the movie and I must say the actors did a wonderful job bringing the characters to life. I found it entertaining and well directed. Definitely not a five star movie, but it got the job done!

I love Phillipa Gregory's books, even the contraversial Wildacre Triology. I love Tudor-era books and movies. I'm a huge fan of Natlie Portman. But this movie is such an injustice to all three that I was forced to finish watching the moive by fast forwarding and stopping breifly at places that looked interesting. This from the first twenty minuites of 1x boredom.

This moive is a tragedy to a beautiful, captivating book, and is not only historically inaccurtate (which, had it been good, I could have lived with) but entirely false to the book it was based upon. DO NOT watch unless bound and gaged and with access to much distraction to prevent yourself from concentrating too much on the awfulness that lies within.

I am a fan of Phillipa Gregory's "The Other Boleyn Girl" novel, therefore I was really excited when I heard they were making a movie. My friends who saw the movie in the theatre warned me that it was disappointing if you were a fan of the book (or if you had even read the book!) and they were not wrong.

This is a horrible adaptation. "Loosely based" is a generous description of what this movie did to Gregory's work. None of the characters are well developed, so you end up asking yourself "why did she/he do that" at critical points of the movie because you don't have the background provided by the book to understand the character's motivation. Also, the movie is primarily about Anne Boleyn (Natalie Portman) whereas the book is about the other Boleyn sister (duh) Mary (Scarlett Johansen). The book's focus on Mary was what made it an interesting take on the whole Anne Boleyn/Henry VIII saga--if you want to see something purely about Anne Boleyn watch "Anne of a Thousand Days" or even the recent Showtime "Tudors"--both are better.

I will say that this movie is beautiful to watch. They obviously spent lots of money on costumes and sets, so it is a visually pleasing film. This doesn't make up for the problems I've outlined above. I would not recommend this movie to anyone who has read Phillipa Gregory's book. Maybe I would recommend it to a casual viewer who has no other exposure to Henry VIII based works, but to anyone else, go find one of the better interpretations out there!