Name: FIREBRAND in The Screening Room at Parade House
Start: 2024-10-11T20:00:00+01:00
End: 2024-10-12T23:00:00+01:00
Location: Parade House Trowbridge

FIREBRAND in The Screening Room at Parade House

FIREBRAND (2024) Cert 15
Alicia Vikander, Jude Law, Junia Rees, Erin Doherty. Directed by Karim Aïnouz. (2h)
Spectacular performances from Alicia Vikander and especially Jude Law ignite this lavish costume drama about the sixth wife of Henry VIII: Catherine Parr, the one who survived.
Adapted from Elizabeth Fremantle's novel Queen's Gambit, it interprets and expands what we do know about Catherine to offer a bold revisionist account of a woman with a surprisingly modern view of the world. Among her several accomplishments, she did much to shepherd a troubled and divided country towards some degree of religious equality by reconciling Henry with his daughter Elizabeth, later to become a mighty Queen in her own right.
Vikander is superb as the clever, fair-minded and calculating Catherine, navigating her path carefully through a court of treacherous and misogynistic men. But it is Jude Law who grabs the screen as the monstrous, needy, capricious Henry, grotesquely obese and oozing pus from his gangrenous legs. It is a truly a monumental performance from an actor at the height of his powers.