No Bursting My Babble

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A foxhunt, scheming and plotting, family conferences, more scheming and plotting, weddings and divorces, yet more scheming and plotting, births and beheadings, still more scheming and plotting. All told, this is the lushly-appointed, substance- challenged, and rather good fun The Other Boleyn Girl. Based on the novel by Philippa Gregory (which I haven’t read), this is likewise a moral tale, heavily disguised- so heavily disguised it never quite molted- as a Melrose Place melodrama in corsets and leg-of-lamb sleeves.

If heaving bosoms (less Natalie Portman’s and more the hypermammiferous Scarlett Johansson’s), racy romps in drafty castles (both Natalie Portman’s and Scarlett Johansson’s), and bluebloods in tights and fur capelets (i.e. Eric Bana in P. Diddy duds) appeal, then this may very well be one’s type of entertainment. It wangles quite a few laughs, all unintended to be sure, manages to draw nil sympathy, which could not have been intended, and inspires… jewelry design, which for me at least, is a happy and redeeming accident.