Word: portmans
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...topic today is child stars, their appeal and limitations. In The Other Boleyn Girl, Natalie Portman, 26, and Scarlett Johansson, 23, play Anne and Mary Boleyn, one destined to be Henry VIII's second wife, the other his mistress. Penelope stars Christina Ricci, 28, in a contemporary fantasy about a girl who has a pig's snout for a nose because, as the family legend goes, a witch's curse had long ago fallen on her ancestors...
...these are challenging roles, not just because the American-bred stars are headlining movies set in ancient or modern London, but because Portman, Johansson and Ricci must cope with audience attitudes toward them that were formed when these women were kids...
...Consider their résumés: Christina Ricci, born Feb. 12, 1980, first noticed when she was 10 in Mermaids (as the sister of another child siren, Winona Ryder), then certifying her kid stardom a year later as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family. Natalie Portman, born June 9, 1981, zoomed to stardom in Luc Besson's Leon, a.k.a. The Professional, when she was 12. Scarlett Johansson, born Nov. 22, 1984, a leading actress at 11 as Manny in Manny & Lo, then at 13 as the troubled girl redeemed by Robert Redford in The Horse Whisperer. All three girls...
...best-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...
...Last King of 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...