Henry’s terrifying gluttony makes the role a field day for Law, who’s clearly gunning for an Oscar. (Festive screenings at Balmoral aren’t likely.) Under his watch, the institution struggles to look too savoury. Aïnouz depicts him as nothing less than the English monarchy’s very own Harvey Weinstein. He’s fat, fuming and not at all hearty, with a leg rotting away that could soon be the end of him there’s a brief shot of maggots writhing in it which could easily cause you to throw up.Įqually, try Henry’s treatment of women here – grunting to hoggish climax in the unsexiest sex scenes of all time, hissing “no more lies!” right into Katherine’s mouth.
We’re a reel in before Law shows up – his first shot as the “angry, ailing” Henry is a hilariously miserable portrait with him playing a flute. Suspicion builds around Katherine herself, who gets pregnant at the right moment to produce a hoped-for “spare”, then miscarries at the very time when she’s most vulnerable to the king’s displeasure. This Protestant radical would soon be torched, as part of a witch-hunt led by the Catholic bishop Stephen Gardiner (a softly calculating Simon Russell Beale), who had the King’s ear. This pungent, meaty historical drama posits them as mortal enemies not just in the domestic sphere: ideologically, they were on different pages of separate Bibles.īefore Karim Aïnouz shows us any scenes from this royal marriage, he starts with Katherine skulking off secretly to a woodland shrine, to attend a sermon from her friend Anne Askew (The Crown's Erin Doherty). Most people coming into Firebrand will know that Katherine Parr ( Alicia Vikander) survived Henry VIII ( Jude Law), but perhaps not in depth what a battle of wills that survival entailed. Divorced, beheaded, nearly burned at the stake for heresy.
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