I came away thinking of Justin Chadwick’s The Other Boleyn Girl, which came out earlier this year. That film was not exactly a masterpiece, but it knew its material well enough to know that the way modern audiences could relate to these people was to amp up the soap opera aspect of it. That film winds up being delightful in a guilty-pleasure kind of way and the actors and filmmakers all seem in on the joke; they saw the difficulty in making that story work as a straight drama, so they vamped it up.

That is taken from Noah Forrest’s latest article about period films.

The Other Boleyn Girl strikes me as a film that ‘feels’ worse than it actually is. What I mean is that I’ve spoken to quite a few Natalie fans who have seen the film and most quite enjoyed it but talk about the film a few weeks later and its gone from mixed-positive to mixed-negative or even outright negative.

Granted, some films just strengthen the more we think about them while others fade away or get worse. I’m just not sure if thats the case on this occasion.

Recently, with it out on DVD now, family and friends have been watching it and without fail, it has been well received by everyone. Even one of my best friends, who really isn’t the costume drama type at all, was suitably impressed.

Could it be that those who didn’t have anything invested in the film were more open to its charms?

I’m not so sure but maybe I need to give it another look for myself.