Katherine Parr and Henry VIII Square Off in the Elusive ‘Firebrand’

June 13, 2024

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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

‘Radioactive’ is a Curie-ous Biopic

July 21, 2020

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Radioactive (CREDIT: Amazon Studios)

Starring: Rosamund Pike, Sam Riley, Anya Taylor-Joy, Aneurin Barnard

Director: Marjane Satrapi

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for A Little Love and Some Death

Release Date: July 24, 2020 (Amazon Prime Video)

Is there anyone who has been more iconic in the annals of both science and romance as Marie Curie? Her research has had far-reaching effects on human society, she was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize (and the first person of any gender to win a second Nobel), and she was married to a fellow scientist who by all accounts greatly respected and encouraged her work. Considering all that, a biopic about her ought to be pretty wondrous, and that does seem to be what the Marjane Satrapi-directed Radioactive is after. As Marie, Rosamund Pike delivers an appropriately ethereal and almost supernatural performance. But like many true life cinematic stories that cover a wide range of time, the film struggles to focus on its strongest elements.

The Curie love story is sweet as Marie and Pierre (Sam Riley) find their way to each other via their own peculiarities. Their courtship is marked by lines like, “How do I look at you? Like a fermenting brain?” She initially holds him at arm’s length, worried that he will expect her to be the sort of wife who gives up her own pursuits for the sake of marriage. Of course, dramatic irony and the historical record assures us that isn’t the case, and it is lovely to see how the mutual respect of these two played such a big part in influencing the future of the whole planet.

Alas, the Curies’ marriage lasted barely more than a decade, as Pierre died in an accident at the age of 46. That leaves a pretty good chunk of movie left, during which Marie and Pierre’s elder daughter Irene (Anya Taylor-Joy), yet another scientist in the family, ascends to fill the role of her mother’s on-screen partner. During this back half, we get plenty of foreshadowing of the deadly fate that awaits Marie due to her years of exposure to radiation. Satrapi and screenwriter Jack Thorne could have played up this element a bit more to achieve more of a horror bent. It probably wasn’t what they were aiming for, but it would’ve made the film more distinct.

Beyond all that, the most effective element of Radioactive is the handful of flash-forwards we get to demonstrate the influence of Marie’s work: a doctor employing an experimental treatment on a young boy with cancer, the bombing of Hiroshima, a nuclear test explosion in Nevada, and a visit to the Chernobyl disaster. I wish there had been more of these moments, as they’re where the message really hits home the hardest. If the movie were structured more thoroughly around them, it could have made for a fully affecting film instead of an intermittently affecting one.

Radioactive is Recommended If You Like: Science, Feminism, Colleague Spouses

Grade: 3 out of 5 Radiums