Watch now for £3.37
Also available in HD for £4.84. More about HD >

“It might sound tacky, but this is shamelessly good fun,” decided BBC Films, “a chocolate truffle of a movie designed to appeal to the heritage cinema market.”

Proving that everyone always loves a costume drama, The Other Boleyn Girl is indeed good, honest, tightly-corseted fun.

Henry VIII is on the lookout for another wife, one who can give him a male heir. Sir Thomas Boleyn, seizing his chance at history, proffers his daughter Anne (Natalie Portman, pictured above) – but Henry is more taken with Mary (Scarlett Johansson).

The fact that Mary is already married gives him little pause for thought.

“This is absurd yet enjoyable, and playing fast and loose with English history is a refreshing alternative to slow and tight solemnity,” said the Guardian. “The effect is genial, even mildly subversive.”

Any film that combines the big screen sizzle of both Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson doubtless deserves widespread attention, while the fact that it was written by Peter Morgan, the man behind The Last King Of Scotland and The Queen, all but confirms that this blue blooded drama boasts much clout.

“The Other Boleyn Girl relies on period pageantry, nasty male politicking and the kind of instant character drawing that takes the eye but scarcely feeds the mind,” argued the Evening Standard.

But Empire magazine concluded that the film is, “a Renaissance soap opera in which the frocks are heavy, colourful and gorgeously embroidered.”

2008 | Drama | Universal | 110 minutes

Get BT Vision now | More FILM on BT Vision

Tags: drama, Eric Bana, Natalie Portman, On Demand, period drama, reviews, Scarlett Johansson, The Other Boleyn Girl

On your V-box™: BT Vision Film > Film A-Z > MNO > Other Boleyn Girl, The