The Other Boleyn Girl is meaner than the average costume melodrama; the deception is darker and the characters are crueler.

Here is a film where sex is not used for marital pleasure, but for political advancement. Here, love is an inconvenience to the business of marriage.

The primary job of the beautiful daughter is not to find a husband she loves, but a husband of political power. As the helpless mother voices, “Our daughters are being traded like cattle for the advancement of men.”

The film takes place behind the closed bedroom doors of the lustful King Henry VIII (Eric Bana). He is upset that his wife cannot produce a male heir, so a plan is made by the Boleyn family to have one of their daughters seduce the king to give him a son and ultimately advance their family.

The two Boleyn daughters are the strong-willed Anne (Natalie Portman) and the married Mary (Scarlett Johansson). Anne is the first daughter to approach the king, but her wild spirit becomes too much for him, and his eye soon turns on Mary. Despite that they are both married, he starts a lustful affair. A terrible jealousy then consumes the other Boleyn sister. There is sadness in watching the desperate Anne. Here is a strong woman trapped in her role of playing her family’s puppet. Her life is a routine of appearing when her family requires her to appear, and disappearing when they’re done with her. The film is at its strongest when it focuses on her anger when she begins to take charge for herself. She understands how to exploit lust, and she uses her beauty as a weapon. She transforms into something of terror.

The material has potential for earth-shattering power. The costumes are extravagant, and the Rembrandt cinematography is starkly beautiful. But something misfires in the last act.

Anne suddenly shifts from maliciously evil to sympathetically nice. Her relationship with her sister gets a clumsy treatment near the end, and the ending is a cop-out.

There’s something that feels unnaturally forced, as if the filmmakers were unsatisfied with leaving Portman’s character in the state of wickedness.

Director Justin Chadwick makes the mistake of suddenly turning her into an object of sympathy when the material was building for a chilling conclusion. I’m all for redemption, but here it doesn’t get the authenticity it needs.

The Other Boleyn Girl is rated PG-13

Abe Rose can be reached at [email protected]