Cast: Alice Vikander, Jude Law, Simon Russell Beale
Review by Carol Allen
If she is supposed to be the firebrand of the title though, then that title is more than somewhat misleading. Despite the challenges and dangers she faces, tor most of the film she is self contained calm itself. As a wife of King Henry, the biggest danger she faces is getting executed by her husband, who has plenty of form in that department. When Henry returns from the war unwell, with a smelly, rotting, ulcerated leg and a filthy temper, the court is a dangerous place for everyone but particularly for Katherine.
The film gives a vivid impression of the atmosphere of Henry’s court with its political intrigues, which carry the threat of the axe. Katherine’s main danger is her interest in radical Protestantism. Despite the fact that Henry founded the Protestant Church of England in order to marry Anne Boleyn, the new church is still pretty Catholic in its ways and both the king and Simon Russell Beale as Bishop Stephen Gardiner want to keep it that way. So when Henry learns of Katherine’s support for Anne Askew (a fiery performance from Erin Doherty), whom we see preaching to the peasants somewhat in the manner of a prospective Labour MP canvassing potential voters, he has poor Anne burned at the stake for heresy, while Katherine is now under suspicion but refusing to confess, despite pressure from the bishop.
Jude Law as Henry is the real firebrand of the film. He’s a misogynist and a bully but he also has an almost childlike vulnerability, along with the remnants of his youthful good looks being visible despite receding hair and a big (prosthetic) belly. He lights up the screen every time he appears.
The strength of film is that sense of political danger in the court, with everyone plotting to literally keep their heads, while the Seymours, Sam Riley as Thomas and Eddie Marsan (Edward), respectively brother and father of the dead Jane, who was mother of the future boy king Edward (Patrick Buckley), are manoeuvring to keep the influence they enjoy as close relatives of the future monarch.
Katherine is particularly touching in her affection for the King’s children – Edward, whom she almost regards as her own son and the neglected teenager Elizabeth (Junia Rees). But Katherine’s stoicism throughout is impenetrable, her calm almost unruffled, through all the misfortunes she suffers, ranging from having bad sex with Henry to incarceration in prison Even when suffering the miscarriage of the unborn child that could have been her salvation, she shows little emotion, all of which tends to leave us unmoved as well. As Vikander is capable of moving an audience to tears, as she did when playing Vera Britain in Testament of Youth, one can only conclude that this was how director Karim Aïnouz saw the character. Even in her final, dramatically shocking action- the one which ensures her survival and is almost certainly fiction not fact – she hardly bats an eyelid.
