Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII, is named regent while the tyrant battles abroad. When the king returns, increasingly ill and paranoid, Katherine finds herself fighting for her own survival.

Credits: TheMovieDb.

Film Cast:

• Katherine Parr: Alicia Vikander
• Henry VIII: Jude Law
• Edward Seymour: Eddie Marsan
• Thomas Seymour: Sam Riley
• Stephen Gardiner: Simon Russell Beale
• Anne Askew: Erin Doherty
• Cat: Ruby Bentall
• Ellen: Bryony Hannah
• Dot: Maia Jemmett
• El Farabi: Amr Waked
• Princess Mary: Patsy Ferran
• Princess Elizabeth: Junia Rees
• Prince Edward: Patrick Buckley
• Earl of Warwick: Andy M Milligan
• John Gates: Edward Harrison
• Jalida: Mina Andala
• Stowe: Paul Tinto
• Thomas Wriothesley: Frank Howell
• Leo: Ashleigh Reynolds
• Sir Anthony Denny: Ian Drysdale
• Courtier: Julian Clapton
• Nicolas Robert Charcoal maker: David Vickers
• William Petre: Joseph Aston Grant
• Kings Guard: Dan Fallon
• Server: Paul Candelent
• King’s Guard: Mark de Freitas
• Catherine Parr’s Footman: Darryl Lane
• Bishop Gardiner’s Footman: Callum Sked
• Joan: Mia Threapleton

Film Crew:

• Director: Karim Aïnouz
• Producer: Carolyn Marks Blackwood
• Executive Producer: Anne Sheehan
• Executive Producer: Maria Logan
• Production Design: Helen Scott
• Casting: Nina Gold
• Director of Photography: Hélène Louvart
• Writer: Henrietta Ashworth
• Producer: Gabrielle Tana
• Writer: Jessica Ashworth
• Choreographer: Francesca Jaynes
• Production Assistant: Ebony Pascall
• Novel: Elizabeth Fremantle
• Second Assistant Director: Arthur Shepherd
• Supervising Art Director: Adam Marshall
• First Assistant Director: Lydia Currie
• Set Decoration: Hannah Spice
• Original Music Composer: Dickon Hinchliffe
• Art Direction: Pilar Foy
• Makeup Artist: Audrey Doyle
• Transportation Captain: Dave Neo
• Hair Department Head: Jenny Shircore
• Costume Design: Michael O’Connor

Movie Reviews:

• CinemaSerf: This rather sumptuous historical drama starts off with a caption that tells us we are all taught from history books about men and war. That appears to serve the purpose of excusing what comes next from at attempts to reflect what little is actually known of Katherine Parr. She was the final wife of England’s Henry VIII and was known as a woman who favoured the translation of the bible from Latin into English to broaden it’s access by the people. She (Alicia Vikander) quickly finds a powerful enemy in Bishop Gardiner (Sir Simon Russell Beale) who strives to prove the point of her friend, the rabble-rouser, Anne Askew (Erin Doherty) that it’s important to the clergy and, indeed, to the King himself (Jude Law) that the interpretation of God’s word is left to those more qualified – and certainly more adept at controlling the message it might convey! With Askew’s life in constant danger, the Queen tries to help and that brings her cat and mouse game with Gardiner to an perilous head for a women married to a distrusting man who still obsesses about having another son as as spare to Prince Edward (Patrick Buckley). What Karim Aïnzou has managed here is to create something that looks authentic. The attention to the detail is lavish and depicts court life in quite a potent fashion. From singing to savagery in seconds being quite the norm. The thrust of the story itself, though, is thin and really struggles to pad out the two hours. There are too many lingering close ups, the pace of the thing is glacially slow and even the most basic of the aforementioned history books tells you what does happen in the end, so the attempts at jeopardy – though they do sometimes illustrate that being queen offered her little protection from the scheming plotters eyeing the secession – falls a bit flat. Though I did quite like the idea of the denouement, it’s not remotely plausible and that rather sums up this disappointing drama that’s very heavy on the speculation and doesn’t really give Vikander much meat to put on the bones of a story about a women caught up in the dregs of this despotic Tudor reign.