Take away the sumptuous settings and Hollywood glamour and what you have here is like Henry VIII for Dummies enacted by the cast of the OC.
Natalie Portman plays Anne Boleyn, who became the second of Henry VIII’s six wives and the mother of Queen Elizabeth I. When Anne arrived at court, Henry was married to a much-older Spanish princess who had been the wife of his late brother. She was unable to produce a male heir, and the impetuous king was vulnerable to the plotting of courtiers who deployed their female family members for power and money. The Boleyn family had two daughters. Mary (Scarlett Johansson), the quiet one who married young and wanted a simple life in the country, caught the king’s eye and became his mistress. Anne, the headstrong one who wanted to be more than a mistress, ended up sundering not only a marriage but Britain’s ties to the Catholic church. She became queen, but like her predecessor (and three of the four wives who followed) she did not produce a male heir. She was beheaded on charges of treason, adultery, and incest.

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