22/05/2023 - CANNES 2023: Jude Law yells and Alicia Vikander silently plots in Karim Aïnouz’s elegant period drama, which fails to truly engage

Alicia Vikander in Firebrand

Karim Aïnouz, who has already delivered a real stunner with his Un Certain Regard winner The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão [+see also:
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interview: Karim Aïnouz
film profile], is now taking a leap into the Cannes Film Festival’s main competition with a starry English-language debut, Firebrand. But this move into much bigger leagues feels weirdly conventional, even despite its feminist take on history that’s now supposed to go beyond “men and wars”.

King Henry VIII (Jude Law) is now married to his sixth wife, Katherine Parr, who apparently makes him happier than “all the others”. Thank God, given what has happened to them. Still, it’s a marriage based on walking on eggshells, on painful sexual interactions, and just one fight immediately leads to her whispering: “Don’t kill me!” This woman might be caressing his face, but she is watching her back constantly.

This odd dynamic is the single most interesting thing about the story. In horror, you get a “final girl”. Here, you get a final queen, determined to survive and literally raising a glass to her husband’s future demise. Firebrand plays like a chiller sometimes, but the killer, the monster, doesn’t have to hide in the shadows or put on a mask. He knows perfectly well his victims have nowhere to go.

Or at least, that used to be the case. Now, the man is ailing and his leg is oozing pus. Law’s Henry VIII is already so sick that it’s almost horrifyingly funny at times – a zombie that still demands all the attention and, obviously, declarations of love. There is nothing vain about this performance, with the once-powerful man reduced to an angry ball of rotting flesh. He is paranoid, unpredictable, cruel. Ironically enough, he actually feels alive.

The problem is, there is absolutely no balance here, as Law hams it up all the way and Vikander does her best to disappear. Parr hides her true personality so well that it’s easy to forget she has any. She is devoid of flaws: she is nice to her stepchildren, including Elizabeth, and small animals, and she understands the struggles of the common people. It’s clear that the film’s writers want to reclaim her as a forgotten heroine with clear ambitions. She is fighting with a bishop who just can’t wait to burn her at the stake, like every other witch, and is a bit of a wannabe revolutionary – friendly with Anne Askew, later condemned as a heretic. But while it’s all very elegant and appropriate, with lush period getup smoothly combined with a politically correct message, it’s just not that engaging.

Some energy, or some spark, has simply gone missing, and just like in Maïwenn’s unfortunate Cannes opener Jeanne du Barry [+see also:
film review
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film profile], things are spelled out once again via a clumsy voiceover. Aïnouz knows how to tell stories about women fighting for themselves – he has proven that in the past. But this time, in this “rotten kingdom”, he could really have got away with being a tad naughtier.

Firebrand was written by Henrietta Ashworth, Jessica Ashworth and Rosanne Flynn. It was produced by the UK’s Brouhaha Entertainment and Magnolia Mae Films (USA), and its international sales are handled by FilmNation Entertainment.

Photogallery 21/05/2023: Cannes 2023 - Firebrand

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Karim Aïnouz, Jude Law, Alicia Vikander, Junia Rees, Mina Andala
© 2023 Fabrizio de Gennaro for Cineuropa - fadege.it, @fadege.it