Liberally adapted from Elizabeth Fremantle’s fast-and-loose historical fiction “The Queen’s Gambit,” director Karim Aïnouz’s tony yet dull British production needn’t try hard to demonstrate that Henry was a notoriously bad husband. There’s a big difference between exposing the truth and rewriting what came before to suit a contemporary political agenda, the way “Firebrand” does. When it comes to art, there’s no statute of limitations on taking toxic masculinity to task, which can be both encouraging (since history has excused no shortage of monsters) and frustrating.

Never mind that Henry VIII died - of very different causes than the movie depicts - all of 476 years ago.

That is the question in “ Firebrand,” a revisionist royal portrait of Henry VIII’s last wife, Katherine Parr (played here by Alicia Vikander), that features all the pageantry you’d expect from a lavish costume drama, while showing the ahistorical audacity to call “Time’s Up” on the gluttonous king (Jude Law).

The far field book review