Lost a bit in last year’s Cannes shuffle was Karim Aïnouz’s Firebrand, a period piece starring (who else to put their superb skills into costume dramas) Alicia Vikander and Jude Law. With Roadside Attractions handling distribution, it arrives on June 14 and there’s now a trailer.
We were mixed-positive on Aïnouz’s film out of Cannes. As Savina Petkova said, “Even if Firebrand prefers to stay on the safe side of period cinema about the British monarchy––unlike Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite or Pablo Larraín’s Spencer––Karim Aïnouz doesn’t fail his audiences. Maybe the ones who’d expect something more of his auteur touch would face some disappointment, but the general audience wouldn’t mind an exciting, superbly acted tale of emancipation and revenge.”
Find the preview below:
In blood-soaked Tudor England, twice married, accomplished, and educated Katherine Parr (Vikander), reluctantly agrees to become the sixth wife of the tyrannical King Henry VIII (Law). Her consent to marry him carries great personal risk, given that her predecessors are either vanquished, beheaded, or dead. When Henry appoints her as Regent, the nation’s ruler during his absence when he departs to fight overseas, he lays a dangerous path for her. Henry’s courtiers, suspecting she’s sympathetic to radical Protestant beliefs that have taken root in the kingdom and are a threat to their power, scheme against her and cast doubts upon her fidelity to the increasingly ailing and paranoid King. Once Henry returns to England, his courtiers convince him to turn his fury on the nation’s radicals, including Katherine’s childhood friend Anne Askew, who becomes one of the scores of people convicted of treason and burned at the stake. Horrified and privately grieving, Katherine finds herself under ever-increasing scrutiny and suspicion. Knowing that even a whisper of scandal might lead to her downfall, Katherine must unleash her own scheme to fight for survival.