Off With Their Heads
(NEW YORK) Thank goodness that consummate skirt-chaser Henry VIII wasn't out Tuesday night at an Alberta Ferretti-sponsored screening of The Other Boleyn Girl, the historical film based on Philippa Gregory's novel. There were too many PYTs to count, which would've proven problematic for that English king, especially given his liasons with those notorious Boleyn sisters, Anne (played by Natalie Portman) and Mary (Scarlett Johansson). But while neither the designer nor Johansson were able to attend, Portman, clad in Ferretti's deep purple silk velvet gown fresh off her fall runway that publicist Annelise Peterson flew back with from Milan, held court. "It's always great to try new things out on-screen," she laughed of her role as the conniving sister with a flexible moral compass. "This was a nice opportunity for me to try out behavior I otherwise would have suffered real-life consequences for!"
In the popcorn line, Leven Rambin chatted up Byrdie Bell, who recently finished filming After School, a documentary directed by Chris Barrett about teacher-student sex scandals (she plays a character named Cherry). "Did you know Natalie's necklace in the film is the same one Ugly Betty wears?" Rambin quizzed. "No way," Bell replied in shock. "It can't be; it's such a crucial part of the film!"
Over at Christie's, which hosted a post-screening dinner, guests drew their own conclusions on the epic film. "It made New York look like a walk in the park," joked Marina Rust Connor. "It's the perfect diet movie," smiled Anh Duong. "The problem with those Boleyn girls is that they always picked the wrong guy for the wrong reasons," laughed Bronson Van Wyck. "We've all been there before!" Fashion plate Dr. Lisa Airan meandered around the old master paintings on display (including a portrait of one of the Boleyn cousins), English furniture from the Tudor period, and magnificent jewels from the upcoming April sales. "Purple was perfect for tonight," she said of her Ferretti gown. "It's the theme!"
Settling into their seats for dinner were Vanessa Carlton, Tory Burch, Amanda and Christopher Brooks, Maggie Rizer, Tara Rockefeller, Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos, Mamie Gummer, Bettina Zilkha, Zoe Kazan and Paul Dano, and Allison Sarofim, who wrapped filming on Lake City, where she and Dave Matthews had a particularly feisty fight scene. "I broke two nails," she laughed. Duong, meanwhile, revealed to dinner partner Carlos Souza that she is working on a new solo exhibition debuting this fall--her first in three years. "London will be next," she promised. "It's such a portraiture city." Helena Christensen, meanwhile, swanned in fashionably late from an earlier dinner her friend Christy Turlington hosted with Marie Claire in honor of her work as an ambassador for humanitarian organization CARE.
Carlos Mota, who filled the long dinner tables with fruit and floral décor, including bountiful anemones, fiddlehead ferns, and ranunculi in a royal-inspired dark purple hue, not to mention mini guillotines, described the setup as Henry VIII-meets-the 1980s. "As far as I was concerned, Henry VIII was the Henry Kravitz or Ron Perelman of today," he roared. "But instead of giving you a settlement, he'd kill you."
David Lauren, Zac Posen, and Bell however, found themselves on the receiving end of the night, discovering that their seats came in the form of large Tudor-period pink chairs placed at the heads of their respective tables. "Fitting," Margherita Missoni concluded. At Portman's end of the table, the actress recounted funny moments from the set. "We definitely had our fair share of joking around," she said. "Eric [Bana] is very funny, and there were a lot of codpiece jokes. And Scarlett's a very funny girl, too; she would do all of this booty dancing in her period costumes!"
Over at the slightly more ambitious adult's table, revelers were more interested in relating the film to the cut-throat climate of New York society. "Now you know what happens to women when they get too ambitious--in a naughty way," piped in Valesca Guerrand-Hermès. Alex Kramer concurred.
"I'm not that socially ambitious," she offered dryly. "I've learned it doesn't get you that far."
JIM SHI and JENNIFER BARTON
