Unusually for a film concerning King Henry VIII of England, Firebrand is not interested in wife one (Catherine of Aragon) or wife two (Anne Boleyn). Instead focus is on the last of Henry’s six wives, Katherine Parr. And, no bones about it, she is the focus of this film, not the king.
A history lesson. At the time this film is set Henry has broken politically but not entirely religiously with Rome. The Church of England has been established and Henry is its head. But because he’s relied so heavily on Protestants to support his break, Henry’s brand of Catholicism is on the defensive and the Protestants are on the prowl.
It’s against this background that the story of Protestant-sympathising Katherine plays out. And if there’s one proper moan to have about Karim Aïnouz’s film it is that its religious context is not made more obvious. So let’s say it again: Henry’s church is Catholic not Protestant at this point.
No one likes those bits in historical dramas where a spear carrier arrives expressly to offer explication – “My liege, your sworn enemy the Duke of Padua is conspiring with your brother-in-law the King of France blah blah blah”. But Firebrand could really do with someone just stepping up and getting all this Catholic/Protestant stuff out there. The entire film turns on it.
Because, while Henry is away fighting a war with France, Katherine is flirting with Protestantism in the shape of radical preacher Anne Askew (Erin Doherty), a real figure from history who was eventually tried for heresy and whose egalitarian interpretation of the bible was just another black mark against her.
In this retelling sticking close to historical fact, after Henry returns early from his campaign, Katherine loses her protected status as ruler in Henry’s absence. Suddenly she is just the king’s consort again. Dark forces, in the shape of zealous traditionalist (ie Catholic) Bishop Stephen Gardiner (Simon Russell Beale), start to machinate, with the aim of revealing Katherine’s heretical sympathies and ending her life.
This is the entirety of Aïnouz’s film in a nutshell – can sweet, fierce, clever compassionate and reasonable Katherine stay one jump ahead of venal scheming Gardiner?
Aïnouz is better known for intense dramas like Futuro Beach or The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao – tales of personal striving and potential redemption. Here, though, you can sense the hand of Netflix: they want historical epic.
Aïnouz, on the other hand, wants hostage drama. Katherine as the prisoner, Gardiner as her jailer, Henry as the one ultimately calling the shots, the king as ogre and his courtiers as fawning lickspittles – the patriarchy in action.
Aïnouz’s DP, Hélène Louvart, is on her director’s side, shooting the film dark and in tight conspiratorial corners rather than the more usual wide shots on colourful sets that we’ve come to expect from the historical drama.
I’ve not yet mentioned Alicia Vikander, who plays Parr. She’s slightly off. It is hard to put a finger on what’s not quite right about her performance. Is it the wandering accent? Is it the strange prosthetics (or is it CG?) strapped on to knock her fine features back a bit? Perhaps she’s unsure how to play this paragon, a feminist saint reclaimed from history being not much to go on.
Vikander’s best scenes are the ones with most grit. Against Simon Russell Beale, for instance. In fact Beale is so good in a very familiar role – the darkly scheming courtier tasting the air like a snake – that he would be up there on the lists of best historical villains if this were a better film. She’s also good with Jude Law, who plays the king as a mercurial psychopath, whose wild swings in mood could be down to his horribly infected leg wound, his generally bloated state of ill health, or just because, as king, he can do what the hell he wants.
This is a good film with a better film somewhere inside it, one where Aïnouz is given his head and he can drop the wordiness and pageantry and make this historical drama as the dank horror movie it always feels like it wants to be.
Firebrand – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
I am an Amazon affiliate
© Steve Morrissey 2024
