Word: johansson
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...though many kids find ways of getting attention, child stars didn't have to figure out the art of allure through painful improvisation; they were taught by pros. Johansson and Ricci both attended a Manhattan showbiz seminary called the Professional Children's School. ("And what are you studying, little Christina?" "How to be a professional child." "Well, don't stay up all night studying, or you won't look like...
...seller that cried out to be visualized. Indeed, the novel was made into a 2003 TV movie, with Jodhi May and Natascha McElhone as Anne and Mary, which was to be released on DVD next month but has been delayed till December to keep from conflicting with the Portman-Johansson movie. So the film now in theaters is actually the other Other Boleyn Girl...
...Scotland and the Broadway play Frost Nixon, so you might expect something more than the puffy costume drama you get. Justin Chadwick, the director, is from TV, and apparently thinks that extreme closeups are as telling on the big screen as the small. No question that Portman's and Johansson's faces merit microscopic attention, but the film has a cramped feeling that turns every urgent, conspiratorial confidence into an italicized shout. That's a shame, because the movie has some excellent supporting skullduggery by Mark Rylance as the Boleyn girls' father, as well as a truly imperious turn...
...asked to do much but coast on her dark, elfin star quality, which she manages nicely. In other adult roles, like the ones in Prozac Nation and Monster, she's worked hard to shrug off the ethereal girlishness of her Mermaids and Addams Family days. As for Johansson, the suspicion lingers that there was always a voluptuous woman waiting to burst out of her pre-teen roles. The few extra pounds she carries, in an era when curves are denounced as baby fat, give her the anachronistic, grown-up glamour of a Rita Hayworth. She photographs as mature beyond...
...That leaves Portman, who has looked stranded in some movies (her turn in The Phantom Menace was especially unfortunate), totally in control in others (do we thank Portman or Mike Nichols for her work in Closer?). It's odd that she plays the wanton Boleyn sister, and Johansson the more demure one, since there's always been a reticence to Portman, the need not to be mistaken for a naughty girl - as if she doesn't realize that the best parts for women are bad girls. She holds back here too, in a part that demands that the stays...