Reseñas de la crítica

[Firebrand] is handsomely mounted and costumed with enough sparks and pace to quicken the interest and heighten the senses... Perhaps it is Aïnouz’s outsider gaze on these historical events and the conflicts with the social order that give the production its perspicacity and its driving force.

Even if Firebrand prefers to stay on the safe side of period cinema about the British monarchy... 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.

What is surprising [about Firebrand] is how little of Aïnouz’s nuanced sensibility is present in his newest, a film floating in the aimless limbo of characterless... [Firebrand is] a lusciously textured but frigidly told reenactment that has little concern for prodding at the making and beliefs of the woman credited here as the one responsible for ushering in a new era for England.

Law, along with some Rembrandt lighting by the cinematographer Hélène Louvart, is the only thing that gives "Firebrand" a hint of personality. Despite Aïnouz's belated efforts to shake things up with a P.J. Harvey needle drop over the closing credits, "Firebrand" is a stuffy, plodding historical drama that can't help but look ridiculous and safe in the context of the Cannes competition.

[Firebrand] is a taut historical thriller, bathed in muted, Rembrant-esque lighting (props to cinematographer Hélène Louvart) and filled with viperish conspiracies and courtly colour. It’s hampered by a pedestrian script and an improbable ending, but always catches fire when the supercharged Law is on screen.

Aïnouz unleashes a somewhat tepid affair, negating Parr’s complex relationship to the Tudors (and a couple other husbands) for a neutered period piece which could have withstood to loosen its suffocating corset.

Vikander is more poise than character and struggles to imbue Catherine with an anachronistic attitude, both well-meaning and wrong-headed... Meanwhile, Law gets to eat the scenery as if it was just so many capons... There’s no genuine grasp of the otherness of the past [in Firebrand], beyond the costume and the facial topiary.

Despite the textured history that Aïnouz has to explore, “Firebrand” trudges on a single wavelength, its tone rarely wavering from the one-note, dour melancholy. It doesn’t help that Jessica and Henrietta Ashworth’s screenplay is an exposition-laden snooze-fest that is about as fascinating to dissect as a History Channel Henry VIII special.

Despite ostensibly being a film about Parr, what will linger in the memory is Jude Law’s fascinating and terrifying portrayal of her tyrannical husband. Which, presumably, is the exact opposite of the point.

Aïnouz, one of Brazil’s most interesting directors, supplies lashings of Vermeer in this English-language debut, and even if he’s hardly in court painter mode, the film’s default handsomeness still plays it quite safe... Ironically, the film peters out a little bit by forcing its hand – but Law is horribly good.

This movie gets a voltage charge every time Law comes on in all his finery... But, frankly, Aïnouz has not directed Vikander very interestingly and allows her to be upstaged... It’s a watchable piece of faux history, but the movie does not know what to do with its own heroine, content to leave her to the clutches of its villain: Henry.

Despite its righteous attempt to reframe history... this bland period drama can’t help but feel like a familiar tale of court intrigue. Not even Jude Law [and his] riveting and revoltingly bellicose take on Henry VIII... is enough to supply “Firebrand” with its missing spark.