If something is sorry about the miniseries Anne Boleyn by Lynsey Miller that HBO Max just included in its catalog in Spain is its desire to provoke. Or perhaps, rather, that he tries and fails. Or at least, not through the story of a controversial, tenacious, ambitious and ultimately tragic woman. In fact, the entire British series is more interested in exploiting the controversy than telling a story; that condition makes the plot a little less interesting than it should. In particular, when Miller’s stakes are high. Or enough to try a direct hit from the first scenes.
Yes, the historic Anne Boleyn is played by Jodie Turner-Smith, an actress of Jamaican descent. Beyond the controversial appearance of his selection, it is evident that the director wanted the character’s race to play a role. To allow this Anne Boleyn for a new generation to express the idea of marginalization, pain and uprooting.
A black-skinned Anne Boleyn is undoubtedly a hit that the miniseries tries to take advantage of and capitalize on. Not only as a measure of the visible and immediate of the decision that turns the miniseries into a search for its own history. Also, in the ability to subvert expectations about how to tell the story today. But in addition, he does so by building a story tailored to a feature of Boleyn’s history that is overwhelming.
Sign up in HBO Max and you will have access to the best series and exclusive movies What The Wire, The Sopranos or Game of Thrones. Includes the entire Warner catalog, Cartoon Network classics and major releases such as Matrix and Dune.
!Now you can subscribe with a 50% offer forever!
This woman who managed to get it all by dint of greed, manipulation and prowess with power, is about to lose. On the verge of collapsing under the fickle personality of a cruel king, and also of the enemies around her. Eve Hedderwick Turner’s script makes casting decisions to prop up ideas. Miller’s Boleyn is facing the court that deplores her, the clique of men who wish her death. And also possibly the viewer uncomfortable and puzzled by the subversion of the image of the story. The miniseries tries to build a paradigm through that vision and achieve a reaction with all its striking force.
However, it fails. What is even worse, the controversy at hand becomes a weight that the argument does not support. As if that were enough, the story – which does not add anything new to the known – is a cheap copy of a larger proposal. Anne Boleyn, with all his air of defiance, he has little of a rebellion. Much rebellious and much of an occasion trick that is not fair because it does not have the tools to sustain its tacit premise. In one way or another, the series collapses when it must show something more than controversy.
An Anne Boleyn without substance, a version without wingspan
By the beginning of the story told by the miniseries, the death of Anne Boleyn is already a foreseeable risk. Also his influence on Henry VIII and the fact that Ana must face a board of power that moves under her feet. It is evident that the director takes the perception about the woman that must fighting her identity as at least a proto-feminist idea.
But again, the script falls short of the ambitions. The plot shows Ana Bolena in search of a meaning and a future. One who knows the twists and turns of a hostile court, who confronts her whenever she can. Also, the woman who knows the importance of a male heir. The intrigues starring Cromwell (Barry Ward) and the sudden favoritism of Jane Seymour (Lola Petticrew). But history fails to delve into the figure of the queen consort. At the same time, when trying to show the nucleus from which Ana’s strength comes. Or in any case, his ability to express that the marginalization and contempt he suffers are elements against which he fights.
However, the argument is more interested in underlining that Ana’s ability to face her enemies does not come from her personality. In fact, time and again, the script emphasizes that Ana’s control – sexual and emotional – over Enrique is the point of interest. The contradiction ends up dismantling the whole attempt of the argument to tell something more elaborate to express more concrete ideas. For its third chapter, the provocation is still there, but also the superficial quality of the series to ignore its own identity.
At the end and beyond controversy, only empty spaces
The Anne Boleyn de Miller played with a subtle maneuver. He tried to create a discussion before a metafictional point to understand the story on screen. But such a narrative pirouette needs a powerful script to accompany it and also a condition of power to sustain it.
Anne Boleyn, as a production, it lacks both. And what is most regretted is that behind ambition and daring there is an empty framework. Perhaps the lowest point of a repetitive story, known and without much incentive that ends up decaying to boredom.