The Women of the Henrician Schism

For almost two decades, I have almost always been disappointed by any recently-released movie I saw; that was not the case with The Other Boleyn Girl (2008). The film was not well-reviewed, probably because it was, in addition to being an historical drama, a morality play, in which the wages of sin get their just reward. The trailer:


"When was it that people stopped thinking of ambition as a sin, and started thinking of it as a virtue?" asks the mother of the two Boleyn girls of their father's revolting eagerness to sacrifice his daughters' purity for the material benefit of the family. The three heroines of the film are the aforementioned Lady Elizabeth Boleyn, the maltreated but dignified Catherine of Aragon, and the title-character, Mary Boleyn, who, despite her fall, is redeemed. Knee-jerk reactionaries might be outraged at what they might see as the film's "feminist" theme, but more thoughtful reactionaries will quickly recognize the more important themes centering on abuse of power, tyranny, and sin.