Firebrand
Directed by Karim Ainouz
Certificate 15
121 minutes
Released 6 September

History. The Tudors. King Henry VIII wanted a male heir to the throne. His first wife failed to deliver, so he divorced her. When the Pope excommunicated him, Henry set up the new, Protestant, Church of England. He kept marrying new wives who ended up, as a popular rhyme puts it, ‘divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived’.

The wife who died, Jane Seymour, gave Henry his desired son – however, Edward (Patrick Buckley) later dies at age 15. The wife who survived, Katherine Parr (Alicia Vikander), is the subject of this movie, which deals with the later period of Henry’s sixth marriage. Katherine is Regent when Henry is away fighting wars, and runs the kingdom in his absence. After his return, Henry (Jude Law) battles with ill health, and becomes increasingly difficult.

Henry champions ‘The Divine Right of Kings’. The more radical Katherine is sympathetic to anyone being able to read the Bible for their own edification. As Queen Regent, she sneaks out to hear itinerant preacher (and childhood friend) Anne Askew (Erin Doherty) preach to a group of followers in a woodland glade.

To an authoritarian like Henry, such teachings are an intolerable threat to England. On his return, unaware that his wife has recently heard Anne’s preaching, he has Anne tortured and killed. He is aided in his thinking and policy by conservative Archbishop Stephen Gardiner (Simon Russell Beale).

Also playing a part in the political machinations at court are the brothers Seymour – Thomas and Edward (Sam Riley and Eddie Marsan), siblings to the late Queen Jane – who want their nephew Edward to become king.

Katherine must deal with all these characters in order to survive: failure could well mean getting on the wrong side of her husband – and execution. The sex scenes are brutal; the scenes in which Henry’s legs are treated by a doctor – or, at his own insistence, by the Queen – are no less pleasant.

Narrated by Henry’s heir Elizabeth (Junia Rees), and compellingly performed and directed, all this presents challenging viewing to the 21st-century Christian weaned on reading the Bible and letting it illuminate our personal and corporate faith under contemporary British tolerance.

Jeremy Clarke is a film critic. His website is jeremycprocessing.com

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This is an article published in the September 2024 edition of Reform