Karim Aïnouz’s adaptation of Elizabeth Freemantle’s novel about Katherine Parr The Queen’s Gambit begins with an unattributed quote:
“History tells us a few things. Largely about men and war. For the rest of humanity, we must draw our own -often wild- conclusions.”
The quote signals that Firebrand is fiction and is best viewed as such as even cursory knowledge about Katherine Parr (Alicia Vikander) and Henry VIII’s (Jude Law) marriage is more than enough to call into question most of the film’s plot and contrivances. Firebrand is another revisionist reclaiming of a Tudor Queen as a feminist icon cut down by ambitious men who viewed her intelligence and influence as a threat. Katherine Parr’s life is often overlooked because she was the Queen who outlived Henry. Katherine Parr was no Catherine of Aragon or Anne Boleyn – women whose lives and deaths fundamentally changed England through Henry breaking from the Papacy and declaring himself God’s chief emissary. Katherine Parr was an intelligent, capable, and for the most part, popular Queen who had the (mis)fortune to be married to Henry during his mental and physical decline.
In Firebrand (scripted by Henrietta and Jessica Ashworth) Alicia Vikander’s Katherine Parr is painted as the woman who could have freed England from tyranny and religious persecution if not for the manipulations of self-serving members of Henry’s court. The film begins with Princess Elizabeth Tudor (Junia Rees) narrating a ‘Once upon a time’ catch up venerating Katherine as not only the only mother she ever knew, but as the competent regent standing in for Henry while he is away warring in France. The England Katherine Parr has been left to steward is blood-soaked, plague ridden, full of religious division, and rotten, but in Elizabeth’s estimation Katherine’s rule is one of relief for those suffocating under Henry and his Privy Council.
Katherine gets word that her old friend Anne Askew (Erin Doherty) is preaching nearby in Derbyshire where the Royal Court has decamped to avoid the plague in London. Anne is a religious Reformist who is speaking to a small group of people about reinstating the Bible in English, and ending the Latin Mass which requires Priests to facilitate communion with God. Neither the clergy nor the King are God’s representatives on Earth she cries and if the King only chooses to embrace reform so he can play God, then the common man should protest for Protestantism.
For Katherine to risk seeing Anne requires some canny trickery getting out of the Castle and ensuring none of her footmen see her. She says she is praying at a Holy Virgin’s shrine nearby and it’s for women only. Meeting with Anne after seven years stirs her own reformist beliefs, especially as Anne chastises her for her marriage to the murderer. Katherine protests that Henry has never hurt her, and he allows her to educate Elizabeth and Prince Edward in the ‘new faith.’ “I believe I was chosen by God to change the King’s mind.” Anne tells her she was chosen to do more than that.
This meeting (and another with Anne) is the basis of what becomes a cat and mouse court intrigue ‘thriller’ centring on Katherine’s potentially heretical views. After the execution of Cromwell, Henry’s religious practice skews towards Catholicism but with no Papal influence. It is unsafe to be either too devoutly Catholic or too loudly Protestant. The power vacuum left by Cromwell is filled by Bishop Stephen Gardiner (Simon Russell Beale) and a series of other noblemen whose purses rely on the King. Edward Seymour (Eddie Marsan) and his brother Thomas (Sam Reilly in an unbelievably terrible red beard) are the most notable Reformists and supporters of Katherine.
Henry arrives home early from France suffering from repeated infections to his ulcerated leg. He’s clearly mad as birds and humiliated by his inability to fight. Jude Law’s Henry VIII is the corpulent drunkard who mounts Katherine like a rutting beast. He speaks of himself in the third person, sees conspiracies everywhere, and exerts his divine right wherever he wants on whomever he wants. Henry’s largesse can turn to enmity in a second. One moment he is proud of Katherine’s management of the kingdom in his absence, the next he is accusing her of infidelity while openly flaunting his affairs.
Katherine makes the mistake of publicly blaming Henry for Anne Askew’s arrest, torture, and death by burning. His rage is terrifying and from that moment on Henry most certainly lays his hands upon her – stuffing his fingers in her mouth with the implicit threat that he can have her head if he chooses, or he can choke her. She will submit.
Firebrand is best when Jude Law is a sweating, grotesque, loose unit screaming that Katherine is “More of a vicious whore than all of the others. We cut them down!” to Gardiner, or telling his children that Katherine is not their mother, as their mothers are “ALL DEAD!” then being wheeled away from them in pique because they disgust him. Law’s presence is one of the few elements that keeps Firebrand moving. Alicia Vikander is underserved by the script especially when she’s vacillating between being the fierce and moral protector of Princess Elizabeth, Prince Edward, Princess Mary (Patsy Ferren), and her ladies in waiting (Ruby Bentall and Bryony Hannah) and then foolishly mishandling other interactions she should be wise to.
Films such as Firebrand ultimately do a disservice to the woman/women they are attempting to honour. Katherine Parr was, historically, suspected of supporting heresy because of a tenuous connection to Anne Askew and Sir Thomas Wriothesley (Frank Howell) attempted to arrest her, but she was able to calm Henry down by promising not to discuss religion and assuring him she was only doing so with him to take his mind off the pain in his leg. Katherine’s composure and general popularity would have required deft management in Henry’s turbulent court. Firebrand provides glimpses of that Parr but the mirror of unreality in the movie is, even by its own parameters, dull until the completely laughable and off the rails ending.
Lies can be told, and are expected to be told, in large scale epics like Elizabeth or Mary Queen of Scots because epics require artifice to sustain them. Karim Aïnouz’s film is not an epic, and although elegantly shot by Hélène Louvart, it has limited visual scope. Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage captured the imagined essence of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in an obviously revisionist portrait by reminding the viewer constantly via set design, deliberate anachronisms, and music cues that it is a fantasy. Firebrand too often cleaves to presenting the events as possible when they’re patently not making the audience more ignorant about Katherine Parr. Instead of unveiling aspects of Parr’s personality through fiction Firebrand comes off as phony as a three-dollar bill thus relegating the whole exercise moot.
Director: Karim Aïnouz
Cast: Alicia Vikander, Jude Law, Eddie Marsan
Writers: Henrietta Ashworth, Jessica Ashworth, (based on the novel Queen’s Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle)
