This queen is on Fire(brand)? (CREDIT: Larry Horricks)
Starring: Alicia Vikander, Jude Law, Eddie Marsan, Ruby Bentall, Bryony Hannah, Sam Riley, Maia Jemmett, Amr Waked, Erin Doherty, Junia Rees, Patsy Ferran, Patrick Buckley, Simon Russell Beale, Mia Threapleton
Director: Karim Aïnouz
Running Time: 120 Minutes
Rating: R for Rowdy Royalty
Release Date: June 14, 2024 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: Henry VIII is one of the most famous and dramatized kings in British history. That makes sense, as there’s plenty of drama to be mined. He had six wives who met a variety of interesting, often deadly, fates, and he reigned at a time when England was in the midst of world-rearranging religious strife. So there are a variety of potential angles to take if you’re going to make a movie set during his reign. Firebrand focuses on his last wife, Katherine Parr, who finds herself holding court in the midst of daily intrigue and sinister gossip. She ends up caught between her attempts to appease the king and her dalliances with a Protestant preacher who’s deemed a heretic, while also trying to serve as a mother as best she can to her fretful princely stepchildren.
What Made an Impression?: Parr for the Course: For this review, I’m basically going to do a performance analysis for the two leads, because that’s what held my attention. My bet is that most people’s exposure to Katherine in terms of pop culture (if they have any exposure at all) is the musical Six. But of course, that stage show is about all of Henry’s wives as opposed to just Katherine in particular. Either way, Alicia Vikander certainly doesn’t play her like a modern pop star. No, instead her Katherine is in a constant state of dilemma and anguish, fundamentally unable to please anyone she cares about, and with no room to maneuver to allow herself any personal satisfaction. She’s just canny enough to survive, but even that is largely attributable to a lucky twist of fate.
He’s Henry VIII, He Is?: Jude Law would be far from my first choice to play Henry VIII, as he strikes me as a bit too handsome and suave to play the famously rotund king. And in fact, when he first showed up in Firebrand, I had flashbacks to his time as The Young Pope, which had me thinking, “Is this Henry supposed to be… hot?” The rest of the movie quickly disabused me of that notion, as Law’s Henry is mad, brutish, and beset by ulcers. He’s quickly sliding into the grips of the Grim Reaper, and that’s frankly a relief to everyone around him. Law is appropriately devoid of vanity, but this Henry is simply too sick for there to be enough room to make him truly compelling.
Firebrand is Recommended If You’re: Just a big fan of Henry VIII’s wives
Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Heresies
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