Director – Karim Ainouz – 2023 – UK – Cert. 15 – 121m
*****
Henry VIII’s sixth wife Katherine Parr must navigate the increasingly treacherous waters between her desire for religious tolerance and Henry’s more authoritarian take on Christianity – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 6th
With her husband Henry VIII away fighting wars abroad, the Queen – Henry’s sixth wife Katherine Parr (Alicia Vikander) – has been declared Regent. Yet, for all the power, at least temporarily, entrusted to her, she cannot go anywhere outside the castle without male guards. On the pretext of visiting a religious shrine to which only women can be admitted, she (and her loyal ladies in waiting) slip off to a forest glade where her old friend Anne Askew (Erin Doherty) is preaching on the fact that the Bible has recently been translated into English and therefore made available to the common people in their own language for the present time. “Where will it all end?”, Anne asks her small, gathered audience.
Where indeed? Katherine may be a reformer at heart, but she is also staunchly royalist and believes in the King both as an institution and Henry himself specifically.
And then Henry (Jude Law) comes back from the wars, bringing her time as Regent to an end.… Read the rest