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YMMV / The Other Boleyn Girl

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From the original book:

  • Jerkass Woobie: Anne is a manipulative little schemer, and she screws over a lot of people to get what she wants. That being said, it's not hard to feel sorry for her as her entire life crashes around her.

From the film:

  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Henry finally has enough of Anne being The Tease and decides to rape her. This is how Elizabeth is conceived.
    • Norfolk sentencing his own niece to her death, when he was the one who manipulated all the bad deeds she did in the first place.
  • One-Scene Wonder: Ana Torrent as Catherine of Aragon steals every scene she appears in. Many viewers praised the graceful, dignified portrayal of the Queen, finding also her Shut Up, Hannibal! moment to Anne.
  • Retroactive Recognition:
    • Among the bigger stars of the film (as detailed in Hilarious in Hindsight above), playing a minor character (King's Messenger) would be one Alfie Allen, who would be better known three years later as Theon Greyjoy.
    • Similarly, another relatively-minor character (William Stafford, one of Anne Boleyn's accused adulterers) is played by someone who would later gain better acclaim: Eddie Redmayne.
  • Tear Jerker:
    • Anne's receiving of her guilty plea. She goes from looking imploringly at her uncle, to turning utterly paper white when he calmly agrees with the others and pronounces her guilty. It's especially heartbreaking when you remember he's responsible for getting her (and Mary and George) into the situation in the first place, all because of his ambition.
    • Anne and George's executions. George is decapitated roughly with an axe in front of a jeering crowd, while Anne has a brief Hope Spot that is cruelly destroyed (the King had told Mary that he wouldn't do anything to hurt a part of her, after she said Anne was like her other half - but then he wrote Mary a letter telling her never to come back to court, and that Anne would receive no mercy). Anne does her best to remain dignified, but ends up breaking down into tears as she removes her necklace with shaking hands.
    • The fates of the Boleyn family: Sir Thomas Boleyn (Anne, Mary and George's father) died two years later in disgrace, The Duke of Norfolk was imprisoned (although that was Laser-Guided Karma) and the next three generations of his family executed for treason (son, grandson and great-grandson), and Lady Boleyn died a year after her husband (and thus two years after Anne and George). Mary's ending is bittersweet, she lost her brother, her sister and her standing at court, but she got to live out the rest of her days with her children and husband, dying at the age of 44 (some ten years after Anne and George's execution).


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