Firebrand: Michelle Williams, Jude Law play historical figures in psychological horror film

Deadline reports that Michelle Williams, most recently seen in Venom: Let There Be Carnage, has signed on to play historical figure Queen Catherine Parr in the psychological horror tale Firebrand, which will also star Jude Law (most recently in The Third Day) as the notorious King Henry VIII. I wouldn’t expect a project like this to be something we’d cover here on Arrow in the Head, I’d usually just write it off as “a stuffy costume drama set in the 1500s”, but the Deadline report really plays up the psychological horror angle.

Karim Aïnouz (The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão) is attached to direct Firebrand from a script by Killing Eve writers Jessica Ashworth and Henrietta Ashworth. Brouhaha Entertainment are producing the film, which has the following synopsis:

By the time young Catherine Parr (Williams) married the deteriorating, increasingly despotic King Henry VIII (Law), she had no assurances of a happy marriage; in fact, she had no assurances of surviving this marriage at all. Of her predecessors, two were thrown out, one died in childbirth and two were beheaded. While Catherine tried to keep her head about her to navigate the politics of her position, she brought a secret agenda. She was Protestant, believed it her duty to marry Henry, for it would be the only position in which she could convert him – and the kingdom – from his pro-Catholic position. That faith was tested when the church resisted granting his divorce from his first wife so he could marry Anne Boleyn, who would later be beheaded. With arrests, torture, and executions of Protestants on the rise, Catherine invited a dangerous game that would leave one of them dead before long. The thriller is told through Catherine’s singular point-of-view of the psychological horror of living with a monster—and the remarkable will to not only survive, but thrive.

Aïnouz said Catherine Parr

deserves a portrait. There has been much depicted on the king and the wives that perished. It’s important to look at someone who turns out to be stronger than the forces around them. This is a modernistic look at the classic trope of the woman trapped in a castle with a monster. One of the first things that came to mind when I started this was the legend of Bluebeard. I think it’s important to revisit narratives that have been conveyed as romantic love stories. Henry was a most interesting person, but he was uber-violent, which was in tune with the times. Jude will not play him as the clichéd fat man eating the turkey leg. Jude got how complex this guy was, not a loveable character but as a most powerful man of his time. And Michelle immediately came to mind. I so admire her choices, going back to Brokeback Mountain, and there is something fascinating about her each time I rediscover her in a performance.”

The director released a lengthy statement about Firebrand to Deadline that demonstrates he is very passionate about this project. You can click over to their site to read the full thing, but here’s an excerpt:

With Firebrand I want to bring to the screen the heat of threatened bodies, the pounding pulse of their hearts, the steam of their breaths, the apparent control of lives that are in constant threat. I see gold, posturing and violence. I imagine an opera fatale, a game of life or death, a movie with saturated colours, deep crimson and blue, a story of characters inhabiting the brutal wind of winter and the silver skies of the North.”

Filming will take place in a castle from the period where Aïnouz says you can “hear the ghosts”.

Firebrand definitely appears to have found the right director for the material. We’ll have to wait and see how much of a psychological horror movie it turns out to be.