Our review of The Queen's Gambit: The Bride Was Too Strong

“Once upon a time there was a sick and angry king who reigned over a corrupt kingdom”, the first sentences of the film, in the form of an incipit of a story, are spoken by a future queen of England, Elizabeth I. His voice introduces an episode from his youth with his father, Henry VIII. She might as well have been humming a nursery rhyme that the English later learned: “Divorced, beheaded, dead, divorced, beheaded, alive,” a mnemonic way of remembering the fate of the famous monarch’s six wives.

Once is not customary, The Queen's Game is interested in the last one. The “living” Catherine Parr, who assisted her husband until his death in 1547. It is by resurrecting this figure of a wife long compared to the nurse of a decrepit king that the Brazilian filmmaker Karim Aïnouz ventures into the ripolinate lands of the film in costumes. And it doesn't smell like mothballs. Clever, he travels to the Tudor court in Devonshire.

In London, the plague is wreaking havoc and here are these beautiful people, a little bling-bling, investing with parrot cage, necklaces in the form of chains and coats with XXL epaulettes, the smallest corners of a castle which seems very badly heated in its cloud of mist.

Catherine Parr (Alicia Vikander), Queen Regent, is in charge while her husband is at war in France. She manages current affairs rather efficiently (disdainful pouts from the powerful of the kingdom) and makes her stepchildren, both orphans, revise their lessons. Young Edward, (Seymour branch, deceased mother) future heir, and Elisabeth (Boleyn branch, decapitated mother) whom she enjoins to go further than the literal translation of the texts. It’s about training a woman who thinks. The queen also sneaks into the forest. There she met the preacher Anne Askew, a childhood friend involved in the Reformation. The expedition did not go unnoticed by its opponents who felt that it had a little too much influence over the aging king.

Precisely, Henry VIII (Jude Law), afflicted with a leg ulcer, returns earlier than expected from the French campaign. The fight is going on at the castle, the stress is spreading throughout the anterooms. “I never know what he’s going to do, or what he’s thinking,” declares young Elisabeth, defeated. Jude Law, ogreesque as hell, thunders, belches, plays a game of cat and mouse with his wife who dodges, alternately cuddly or firm.

It’s a matter of buying time since the disease is getting worse. To consolidate her position when she has just declared that she is pregnant. Around, the courtiers hold their breath (literally and figuratively because the gangrene is spreading) before this moody king stunned by alcohol and pain. Catherine's supporters turn around. The noose is tightening. Karim Aïnouz films the story by looking through the keyhole, at the couple's confrontation. It introduces the psychological thriller into this England filmed like a painting. Everyone advances their pawns: the devious and violent husband, the clever and determined wife. He is fire, she plays with it. With an impassive face but a pounding heart, Alicia Vikander confronts with great audacity a Jude Law who is as unrecognizable as he is worrying. The king is dead. Phew! Alive.

“The Queen’s Game”. Historical drama by Karim Aïnouz. With Alicia Vikander, Jude Law. Duration: 2 hours

Le Figaro’s opinion: 3/4.