Before I
begin, I’ll admit to knowing pretty little about Mary Queen of Scots. Beyond the barest details, I don’t know what
in this story is true and what’s made up, though I’ve heard it takes quite a
few liberties. Even without having a
good feel for the historical inaccuracies, I recognize problems the film has,
and yet I also admit that I enjoyed it a lot.
When the
Catholic Mary returns to her native Scotland to rule there, Queen Elizabeth’s
Protestant court starts to get edgy.
Even as Mary writes to her cousin Elizabeth, urging to be named the
successor to Elizabeth’s throne, Elizabeth’s advisors are adamant that a “papist”
will never rule England. The two queens
conduct a long-distance battle of wills through ambassadors and other
go-betweens, and all the while, they separately wrestle with the question of
how to rule men when their societies deem them lesser for their sex.
This is
an interesting story to me (again, with the disclaimer that I don’t have a good
grip on just how fast and loose it plays with history.) I really like the tug and pull between Mary
and Eizabeth, two powerful, intelligent women who both believe they rule by
divine right. It’s neat to see how they
respectively respond to the idea of whether or not they’ll marry, how they deal
with the courtiers who frequently attempt to talk over them, and how they react
to the incredibly-gendered pushback they get from men who would have them under
their control (a big theme of this movie is the fact that even queens are
forced to deal with slut-shaminng and toxic masculinity up to their eyeballs.) I also admit to liking stories of court
intrigue and secret plots (I don’t watch Game
of Thrones for nothing!), and this film has quite a bit of that.
But
still, it’s a pretty flawed movie, much more so than its fine cast
deserves. Mary herself seems to get lost
in the shuffle sometimes – she’s always at the heart of the action but not
necessarily the viewpoint character we find within it. This can make the film feel lacking in
direction, as we see what Mary’s
doing without always having a clear reason for why she’s doing it.
Watching
the film, I definitely wish it were stronger, but I was still drawn in by
it. The performances are well anchored
by Saoirse Ronan as Mary and Margot Robbie as Elizabeth, two formidable actresses
playing two women in extraordinary positions, inexorably linked across
distance. Other familiar faces include
Brendan Coyle (Mr. Bates from Downton
Abbey,) Guy Pearce, and Tenth Doctor David Tennant. The film also features a bit of race-bent
casing, which I find refreshing. Gemma
Chan (lately Astrid Leong in Crazy Rich
Asians) plays one of Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting, and Adrian Lester, who
played an excellent Oliver a handful of years ago in an adaptaion of As You Like It, has a larger role as an
English ambassador to Scotland.
Warnings
Strong
violence (including rape,) sexual content, language, drinking, and thematic
elements.
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