Firebrand is a period drama about Henry VIII’s sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr. It is sumptuously photographed – it’s as if Hans Holbein were behind the camera – and magnificently costumed. And Jude Law is tremendous as the monstrous, ailing Henry but be warned: it doesn’t play fast and loose with the facts so much as throw them out the window. This can work, if it’s for a good reason, but this, alas, never seems to find that reason.
Law’s performance is so gloriously disgusting you can’t take your eyes off him
The film, directed by Karim Ainouz and based on the book by Elizabeth Fremantle, states its aim at the outset with title cards: ‘History tells us many things, largely about men and war. For the rest of humanity we must draw our own – often wild – conclusions.’ Must we? Who said? Is that written down somewhere? The stage is set for one of those ‘you go girl!’ feminist revisionist histories. Yet having told us what it’s going to do, the film then doesn’t do it. It may even do the opposite.
We first encounter Catherine (Alicia Vikander) while Henry is away fighting the French. She is acting as regent but also secretly meeting the outspoken protestant reformer Anne Askew (a feisty Erin Doherty). Catherine is sympathetic to her cause but to even think along those lines is heresy, so she must hide her beliefs from the court’s powerful Catholic faction. Stephen Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester (a sly Simon Russell Beale), would particularly like to see her burned at the stake. And he does have Henry’s ear.
Henry returns. He is cantankerous and violent and obese and paranoid and his ulcerated legs are giving him gyp, which may be the understatement of the year. This is not a film for the medically squeamish. Pus oozes as his doctors change his bandages. It was reported at the time that you could smell Henry from three rooms away. On set, Law wore a ‘fecal matter’ scent so he might make his fellow cast members genuinely heave. (Needless to say there has been no tie-in with Penhaligon’s as of yet. I’ll update you if the situation changes.)
Will Henry discover his wife’s betrayal? Or will she get away with it? That’s the main thrust, but it’s told without much verve or suspense. Plus there’s so little context or exploration of the religious and political fervour that marked the end of Henry’s reign that it’s hard to comprehend why, for instance, printing the Bible in English was such a big deal.
But most worryingly, there is no way you could look at this Catherine and think: ‘Firebrand.’ She remains mostly passive throughout. When confronted about her friendship with Anne she immediately dissembles. We see her having sex with Henry. Twice. It’s not a pretty sight. There’s even a gruesome attempted rape.
Given his legs were rotting away from under him, it’s thought he was not sexually active at this time so why conjure it? Misogynistic voyeurism? Many of the events she endures in the film, in fact, never happened: pregnancies and bloody miscarriages and necklaces shoved down her throat. It fetishises her as a victim. She never has any real agency until the final scene, which will have historians pulling their hair out and banging their heads against the wall.
The cinematography, however, is magnificent and Law’s performance is so gloriously disgusting you can’t take your eyes off him. Vikander, meanwhile, plays Catherine as strangely remote and unreadable, even while these unspeakable things happen to her. I can’t tell you the specifics of the insane and ludicrous ending but let’s put it like this: divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded… Prepare for a mighty surprise!
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