60
For a movie whose story hinges almost entirely on sex, The Other Boleyn Girl is disappointingly demure.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
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.
50
New York Magazine (Vulture) by 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.
70
A sexy, good-looking political bodice-ripper with an almost flawless cast at the top of its game.
50
Charlotte Observer by 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.
67
Austin Chronicle by 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.
75
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
A classy romantic cocktail distinguished by its tart yet breezy bite.
60
The Hollywood Reporter by 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.