Alicia Vikander and Jude Law embody the turbulent Lives of Katherine Parr and Henry VIII in Karim Ainouz’s engrossing historical drama
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
A kind of prequel to Shekhar Kapur’s “Elizabeth,” the 1998 historical drama that launched Australian Cate Blanchett into the stratosphere as the eponymous Queen, Karim Ainouz’s “Firebrand” arrives with much less fanfare than it deserves. This marvelous and engrossing historical drama tells the story of Katherine Parr (a career-best turn by Alicia Vikander), the last of the six wives of Tudor King Henry VIII (a similarly excellent Jude Law). Parr was the Queen of England, France, and Ireland from her marriage to Henry in 1543 to his death in 1547. She was also the first woman to publish an original work under her name in English in England.
Much of the film’s action occurs in Hampton Court Palace, where the Tudor royal family resides while the plague rages in London. The plot, fictional but based on actual events, also tells the story of Bishop Stephen Gardiner (a diabolical Simon Russell Beale) and his scheme to find evidence of Protestant sympathies on Parr’s part and have her condemned.
Katherine has produced no children of her own, but she loves and dotes upon Henry’s children from his previous wives, including the young Princess Elizabeth (Junia Rees, who also narrates) and Prince Edward (Patrick Buckley). Katherine is suspected of having “progressive” convictions (she does) and of supporting a woman named Anne Askew (Erin Doherty, “The Crown”), an activist who preaches in favor of an English Bible for the common people. Such beliefs and actions are enough to condemn and burn you at the stake in Gardiner’s and Henry VIII’s England.
Katherine was named Regent in the absence of Henry VIII, who was at first away waging war in France despite his age and gout, which tormented both his legs. He cannot mount his horse without help and is almost unable to walk. Otherwise, Henry is full of life and mischief. He loves, for example, to play a keyboard and sing along with the entire court to such tunes as “Blow Thy Horn, Hunter” (“There is a doe in yonder wood”) by William Cornysh. In the voice of one of Henry’s children, whom we recognize as Elizabeth, we hear of a kingdom “riven by religious unrest,” “heads struck from bodies,” and a Queen who “wanted to steer the kingdom to the light.”
Katherine takes a short journey with her retinue to a local shrine where only women are allowed, allowing her to leave her guards behind while she meets Anne. Their affection for one another seems more than friendly. As Anne, Doherty is another of the film’s assets. Anne refers to Henry “as the killer you were forced to marry” to Katherine—surely words to get her burned alive. She and Katherine embrace beneath mossy trees. At the castle, Thomas Seymour (Sam Riley), Katherine’s former beau, arrives. He and his older brother, Eddie Seymour (Eddie Marsan), have Protestant sympathies and plans. All of the male actors are heavily bearded.
The Bishop is on a constant hunt for heretics, knowing that he can get anyone to confess by torture. The King’s doctor (Amr Waken, “Geostorm”) has been unable to cure his gout. The bandages must be changed, and the wounds are hideous, agonizing, and putrid. In contrast, the women of the court, Katherine included, wear pinned sleeves, stiffened bodices, and expensively bedazzled bonnet-like headdresses tied beneath their chins. Katherine has convinced Henry to restore his daughters Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession. Henry is a brute when drunk, which is much of the time.
The screenplay by Henrietta Ashworth (“Killing Eve”), Jessica Ashworth (“Becoming Jane”), and Rosanne Flynn, based on the novel “Queen’s Gambit” by Elizabeth Fremantle, vividly depicts the complex relationship between Vikander’s superbly intelligent Katherine and Law’s lusty and imperious Henry, including their brutish sex life. In a role initially intended for Michelle Williams, Vikander strives to avoid the fate of Henry’s previous wives and be a worthy mentor to Elizabeth. Director Ainouz, whose previous credits are unfamiliar to me, does a fine job bringing this 16th-century world of plots, religious conflict, and sex to life. The cinematography by Helene Louvart (“La Chimera”) is lush and vibrant. Music by Dickon Hinchliffe (“Peaky Blinders”) is an expressive invocation of life on a razor’s edge. We hear a litany of people who have been burned or beheaded. It is a cruel time, ruled by men but made more civilized by women. The secret battle is between the sexes.
‘Firebrand’
Rating: R, violence, nudity, sexually suggestive scenes, gruesome imagery
Cast: Alicia Vikander, Jude Law, Simon Russell Beale, Sam Riley, Eddie Marsan
Director: Karim Ainouz
Writer: Henrietta Ashworth, Jessica Ashworth, Rosanne Flynn, Elizabeth Fremantle
Running time: 120 minutes
Where to Watch: AMC Boston Common, Showcase Cinema de Lux Woburn, and other suburban theaters.
Grade: A-
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