A historical abomination: Firebrand reviewed

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.

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.