Firebrand

This beautifully shot and meticulously cut film is far better than the reviews suggest, and the performances are all first-rate.

I wasn't expecting the story to be in any way accurate - and I am fairly clued up on Henry the Eigth - and it isn't. But despite that the film works really well.

June Law is the BEST dipiction of an elderly, dying Henry VIII, I give his performance 10 stars.

The film is loosely tied to real events, with one exception and to that, later.

The setting in Haddon Hall, the building works perfectly, the Tudor period and its inhabitants were still quite medieval animals, with rare exceptions, and about 100 years behind their European contemporaries (see Chambord for example). Not until Charles I can England be described as having an emerging Renaissance culture. The clothes, head-dresses, jewellery, furniture are all deliciously vernacular, as is the Latin liturgy (which is helpfully translated using subtitles) as the setting is pre-Common Prayer - just).

So, the overrall flavour of Tudor Court life shown as a primitive and cruel place, given licence by a wilful, cruel and despotic king, is bang-on. The depiction of Elizabeth Parr's endurance of unspeakable treatment in a loveless, selfless marriage to an utterly unpredictable and boorish, selfish, old man - who also happens to be King and wields absolute power - quite justifies the finale which is THE ultimate wish fulfillment of all battered and abused wives everywhere!

Enjoy the film, and the less English history you know, the better it gets.

STAR RATING: ***** Brilliant **** Very Good *** Okay ** Poor * Awful

Henry VIII (Jude Law) returns from battle, ailing and injured. His present wife, Katherine Parr (Alicia Vikander) has an alliance with Anne Askew (Erin Doherty), a radical who still preaches the Protestant faith with a group of fellow followers. After executing a friend of Katherine's, she is forced to maintain a solid show of unity with her monarch husband, as he cracks down on the Protestant rebels, and all who support them.

While I did have a brief fixated interest in the Tudors and Stuarts as a young boy, it gradually faded over time. But one that remained ingrained in my, and probably many others who studied the topic, was King Henry VIII, a figure as large in figure as he was in life, the rock and roll king, who played by his own rules and lived his life in full blown bombastic fashion, in a manner that would make Donald Trump and Boris Johnson blush. Director Karim Anouz's historical drama delves into his being with unreserved zeal, portraying him as the tyrannical monster he truly was.

In the lead role, what must be a heavily made up Jude Law portrays said king, completely unrecognisable as a result of his transformation, but still able to deliver quite a compelling performance. In the other central roles, Vikander and Doherty are two powerful, commanding female leads, in roles as vital to the accuracy of the tale as the main character, complimented by a supporting cast including Sam Riley and Eddie Marsan. Anouz certainly doesn't hold back visually either, with some full on sex and violence. Despite all of this, however, there is never enough spark and energy in the script to really give it the power it needs.

In the present turbulent times with 'strongmen' leading everywhere, this is an even more prescient and inspiring idea for a film. The performances are strong and the era recreation is convincing, but they're sadly let down by a script that doesn't match them. ***

Some positive notes: Alicia Vikander is amazing, costume design is great and it's visually stunning.

I don't mind historical inaccuracies. I do care about boring movies. How could it be so boring? The cast is amazing! The costumes are great, the acting is wonderful and the colors are beautiful. Yet, I watched a lot at my watch halfway in.

But, I don't know why, it fails to really entertain. It's not really a thrilling or grim movie but I have a feeling it was supposed to be. Also because it lacks emotion. That's because of the script and not because of Jude Law and Alicia Vikander.

Should you go see this? I'm not sure.

I began watching the movie without reading anything about it but the people involved.

10 minutes in the film and I get the same claustrophobic feeling you get when you feel that everything around you hangs by a thread and every word could be a threat to your very existence.

Some people haven't lived with a psycho or a narcissist. Those who have would be quite quick to realise the portrait of Henry that Jude Law was going for. I watched the entirety of the film thinking about how narcissists exploit everyone around them, making them walk on eggshells constantly, belittling them with tough, stingy remarks that look like jokes while you know that they could become a flood hitting your face next. Henry's grip on everyone around him is proportional to the power he was wielding at that time, a king appointed by God who was questioned by no one. He has absolute power of everyone around him and he is expecting others to dance at his whim while he enjoys watching them squirm and twist to predict his uncontrollable fits of rage or loosing his favour.

Towards the end of the film I realised what psychologists speak about when they mention that a narcissist destroys many people around him and/or takes them down with him because he senses his end.

The whole story could have been an essay about women in the blood soaked Tudorian era trying to survive within the confounds of a male designed and controlled society. But, it was rather a portrait of a deranged fill with grandiose narcissist who thought others were his toys. Surely, ecclesiastical zealous and the reform and other subjects were touched, but with no particular strength or adequate given time to see them through.

Jude Law and Alicia Vicader were excellent in their roles. I would recommend the watch.

This film is set during the last days of Henry VIII (1546-7), with Jude Law as the King and Alicia Vikander as his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr, who was also mother in all but name to the king's three children (only one of whom ever knew their actual mother).

The film starts with a caption which says (I forget the exact words) that there are always gaps in our knowledge of history, which we often fill with things we've made up. Well there aren't quite so many gaps as this film seems to suggest. The ending is entirely fictional, and there's at least one plot point that's total fabrication.

Does this matter, given that they were open with us? Probably not. Law is excellent as the sick, dying and paranoid king. Vikander is also excellent as the woman who must constantly tread a microscopically thin line between giving the king the support and affection he needs and becoming the third of his wives to be executed. Simon Russell Beale radiates oily menace as the odious Bishop Gardiner, and the rest of the ensemble cast do a good job in portraying a court torn between jockeying for advancement and fearful of provoking one of the king's irrational outbursts.

I do have one issue with the film: in an early scene we see Erin Doherty as Anne Askew the religious reformer (or radical, depending on your point of view) preaching to her followers in the woods. This is a dramatic and moving scene, and one hopes that Askew is going to feature prominently. She doesn't. Less than two minutes later we learn that Askew has been arrested, tortured and burned at the stake. We see nothing of this, which struck me as a missed opportunity.

That aside, we get a moving and dramatic film which skirts round the edge of actual history.

Oh; and if a King writes a song, of *course* the whole court will learn the words.