The Other Side to the Story

I went to see The Other Boleyn Girl. I hate to say it, but I expected this movie to be much more historically accurate. Sure it hit on the major points, but it clearly made some dramatizations.

First of all, while it’s true that Mary was Henry VIII’s mistress, it was never PROVEN that the son she had was his. In fact, she had two sons, and both were rumored to be the kings. The problem was that it couldn’t be proven. Don’t you think that if Henry was that desperate to have sons, he would have done something he knew they were his? Furthermore, once Anne left the court, she was banished. That means…there’s no chance in hell that she was going to come back to defend her sister!! True she remarried, but well before Anne was beheaded.

Second of all, Anne Boleyn probably pregnant before she was married to Henry VIII. Really, the timeline is still off. Furthermore, she had two miscarriages, not one. And the affair that Henry had during her pregnancy wasn’t Jane Seymour, she didn’t come along until later in the time line.

It’s true she was accused of incest, but she was also accused of adultery, with FOUR GUYS! Seriously Hollywood, you missed your chance on an even racier movie. You were already taking creative liberties, why miss out on this one? The movie added the story line of her “marriage” to Wyatt, but that was proven to not have happened. Granted all the charges against her never really made sense, but that’s the Brits for ya.

Finally, the stupidity of people never cease to amaze me. When Anne Boleyn was beheaded, people in the theatre actually sounded surprised!! Really? You didn’t see it coming? It’s like Titanic, you knew it was going to sink. Come on! I learned the poem in the fourth or fifth grade to remember the demise of Henry’s wives: Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. The odds are good that in a movie based on the Tudors, someone’s getting their head chopped off.

Yes, there were plenty more that I didn’t even touch on. But I did appreciate the fact that many of the people of court were accurate, even if the timelines were off. The fact that Oliver Cromwell read Anne’s sentence cracked me up! I guess I shouldn’t expect much out of Hollywood, but it would be nice if they gave people a more accurate account of history, rather than always feeling the need to kill brain cells.