The Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz (The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmāo) is a film-maker who, like Todd Haynes and Pedro Almodóvar, is particularly at ease with the heightened register and emotional swoops of melodrama. It’s a little disappointing, then, that so little of this aspect of his creative personality is on display in his latest film.
Firebrand, a revisionist portrait of Katherine Parr (Alicia Vikander), last wife of Henry VIII (Jude Law), is solid but cautious. Adapted by sisters Henrietta and Jessica Ashworth from Elizabeth Fremantle’s 2013 novel, it’s that rarest of releases: a picture that would benefit immensely from being far more lurid and overblown. It’s no coincidence that the element that works best – Law’s gloriously monstrous Henry, with his putrid leg wound and his festering grievances – is the one that takes the boldest, most extravagant risks. Law is phenomenal – a petulant, powerful and vengeful man who has the court balanced on the knife-edge of his mercurial favour. Vikander is magnetic as Katherine, but, as with the depiction of Josephine (played by Vanessa Kirby) in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, the screenplay creates a strong woman of today rather than a credible figure from history.