AMC+'s Jodie Turner-Smith-led Anne Boleyn shows the importance of recontextualizing a tragic historical figure

Paste Magazine

"Revisiting history is a good thing," Tara Bennett says of the British  limited series starring Turner-Smith in the title role, now available in the U.S. "The dusty stories we learn in middle and high school in this country are rarely nuanced, updated, or contextualized with the lens of society’s understanding of how patriarchy or systemic bias influenced the original telling of events at the time. And it only gets worse when we’re learning about the stories of the world outside our borders. All of this is why AMC+’s airing of the limited series, Anne Boleyn, arrives when we could all use a fresh look at King Henry VIII’s second wife, mostly remembered today for getting beheaded by him. Written by Eve Hedderwick Turner and directed by Lynsey Miller, this three-part series (which premiered on the UK’s Channel 5 earlier this year) stars Jodie Turner-Smith (the first Black actress to take the role) as Tudor Queen Anne Boleyn, and the narrative is refreshingly framed from the Queen’s point of view. While she reined as Queen of England for three years, the series is laser-focused on the last five months of her life, in which her position with Henry (Barry Ward) and in his court’s esteem dramatically dissolves, leading to her eventually being charged with treason, adultery, and incest with her brother, George Boleyn. With the exception of Starz’s The Spanish Princess, if you think back to any film or TV series featuring King Henry VIII, he’s almost certainly portrayed with an outsized, mercurial personality that dominates the focus of the story in which he resides. His six doomed wives are demure victims often used as pawns for his ego, sexual impulsivity, and obsession with siring a male heir. What Anne Boleyn and Turner-Smith do so well in this series is make Anne a far more defined woman with her own ambition, intelligence, and keen strategic savvy."

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• Jodie Turner-Smith is the only reason to watch Anne Boleyn: "There is one truly irresistible reason to watch Anne Boleyn, and her name is Jodie Turner-Smith," says Angie Han. "As the doomed queen of England, Turner-Smith exudes a presence so powerful it feels almost physical, as if she’s stepped through the screen and is waiting expectantly for your curtsy. If only the series around her lived up to the lucidity of her performance. Though writer Eve Hedderwick Turner and director Lynsey Miller aren’t short on interesting ideas or good intentions, their heavy-handed approach too often deadens the very world they’re trying to bring to life. Anne Boleyn does succeed in positioning its title character as the protagonist of her own story rather than, as she’s often portrayed, just one of a rotating cast of women around Henry VIII (Mark Stanley). When the story first picks up with her in early 1536, she’s literally glowing. The candlelight of a crowded party glints off the gold shadow smeared around her eyes, the delicate chains woven into her hair, the pearls looped around her neck, the yellow satin wrapped around her body — which is swollen with what Anne expects will be Henry’s first legitimate male heir. Combined with Turner-Smith’s regal bearing, bright eyes and silky voice, these visual cues mark Anne as the sun around which the story revolves."
• Turner-Smith dominates every scene in Anne Boleyn, but the show ends up being very bland: "She has some beautiful speeches and appears to truly understand Boleyn’s frustrations, regrets, and anger," Kristen Lopez says of Turner-Smith. "When she signs a document, presumably hoping it will save her, Turner-Smith’s question of selling her soul is tinged with such a genuine, deep-throated sadness. She’s coupled with Paappa Essiedu (I May Destroy You) as her brother George, who also has a fantastic rapport with Turner-Smith. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough time devoted to their relationship, and only a few scenes of them on-screen, that it comes as a bit of a shock when the pair are accused of having an affair. That sense of confinement is probably the only way to see this as a psychological thriller. It’s a bizarre way to sell a historical drama like this, especially as there’s nothing particularly psychological or thrilling that takes place over the three episodes. Everything manifests in a straightforward manner; not even the cinematography conveys anything passing for disordered thinking. If anything, the show enjoys pointed metaphors a bit too much. Turning the camera toward an axe being used to end a meeting. Why remind them of how Boleyn dies while removing 90 percent of her history prior to? At times it’s almost impossible to feel like we’re getting into these characters’ heads, let alone Anne’s."
• Jodie Turner-Smith's aim was to humanize Anne Boleyn "instead of sort of sensationalizing her": “We’re not just saying she was this seductress and this scandalous woman, but more about this person who had desires and goals and dreams for herself, for her daughter, and this is what happens when those things start to slip away from her," says the actress. “The idea of showing her kind of losing grip is because we’re trying to tell a story about her humanity, about what loss and grief and fear did to her and what they mean.” Turner-Smith also sees similarities in the treatment of Anne Boleyn, Meghan Markle and Princess Diana. "That’s another thing that made this story an appealing one to tell, that as a concept, this idea that a woman who appeared to be disruptive to the monarchy—what that meant for the people around her and how that meant they needed to try and destroy her and bring her down,” she explains. “I think it’s a universal concept. I think we find it with womankind across the world, a woman who is powerful, who is pushing for change and is disrupting in any way, is considered a threat.”