Movie Review: Yass, "Mary Queen of Scots"

Mary Queen of Scots isn’t revolutionary, but it is about one, and she’s played brilliantly by Saoirse Ronan.

How do you make history interesting? Trick question, because history is always interesting (and always happening too, I suppose).

Still, for anyone sick of pictures about olde-timey monarchs in ornate regalia, Mary Queen of Scots at least stars Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie, which helps.

If you’re not familiar with, um, the most famous regal rivalry that doesn’t take place in Westeros, director Josie Rourke and screenwriter Beau Willimon have produced a digestible and compelling CliffsNotes version of events for you.

In it, Ronan plays Mary Stuart, a descendant of King James V who believes she should rule 16th century England. Instead, the throne belongs to her cousin Elizabeth, played by a pock-marked Robbie. From Scotland, Mary plots to corner Lizzy into making her the crown’s successor; Lizzy, meanwhile, allows her advisors to foment revolution among the Scottish people and weaken Mary's political power. Their religions—Mary, a Catholic; Elizabeth, a Protestant—play a part, as do their actual genealogical lines, which, admittedly, are a bit hard to track, and incesty. I’ll let the historians clarify those aspects elsewhere. I can write a passable review, or I can poorly diagram a convoluted family tree, but I can’t do both, y’know?

Willimon adapts John Guy’s biography Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart, and he knows his way around palace intrigue, having created the American House of Cards. However, he’s a little flowery with the period-specific dialogue, in one case forcing Ronan to tangle her tongue around a run-on sentence that uses "Mary" and "marry" multiple times. She pulls it off, because she’s Saoirse Ronan dammit, yet I’m a mere man and my head was left throbbing.

It’s not a war movie; at least, not much of one. The lone sequence in which Mary leads an army to the frontlines is interrupted by a horde of yak. Rather, Mary Queen of Scots ably depicts a battle of wills between two queens, with Mary constantly having to scheme her way out of the latest betrayal, and Elizabeth making chess moves from some distance, letting her advisor William Cecil (Guy Pearce) be the bad guy so she can play both sides, while questioning her own allegiances.

It all builds to a singular showdown between Mary and Lizzy, which overcomes strange staging by theatre veteran Rourke—who has them conduct their long-awaited chat between some hanging linen—and builds to an almighty crescendo. Think of the part in Heat where Robert De Niro meets Al Pacino. Then put them in red wigs. Yeah, now you’re getting it.

The intention of this new retelling is clear: to reset both queens as feminist icons (kweens?) and not sworn enemies (not at first, anyway). In Mary Queen of Scots, they’re sisters in the same misogynistic fight against the machinations of men. It’s telling that the one who prevailed—spoiler alert, for history—is the one who’d go on to declare herself the "Virgin Queen", and, in this film, boasts of being like a man. The one who holds onto her "womanhood" (as defined here) winds up cursed by her gifts. In this current landscape, you could argue little has changed.

Ronan is fantastic, it hardly needs saying, and is both fierce and tender as Mary. (It’s especially entertaining to watch her swerve on suitors planted by Elizabeth, Brexiting them back to the U.K.) Robbie’s role is much smaller, and sometimes her understated moments are engulfed by Queen Elizabeth’s distinctive horror-show lewks (which range from full-blown boils to all-white make-up). As with most period pieces, the real heroes are the production and costume designers who bring it all to life. They combine to make Mary Queen of Scots very watchable, rescuing its central figures from the historical "Swish Swish"-style beef to which men had them relegated.

3.5/5

In Australian cinemas 17 January 2019. Rated MA15+ for strong sex scenes and violence.