Mary Queen of Scots (Film Review)
Oct. 27th, 2020 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakI saw Mary Queen of Scots, with Saoirse Ronan in the titular role, Margot Robbie as Elizabeth I., directed by Josie Rourke. My emotional reaction to this was roughly "Hang on, this isn't as bad as I thought it might be after the trailer...this is actually good...no, wait... ah yes. I can see now why the reviews made me not watch it in the cinema, and I was right to do so".
Saoirse Ronan gives a good performance in the titular role, and while the Scottish accent is extremely not history (given how young Mary was when leaving Scotland to be raised at the French court), the movie actually lets Mary speak French with her attendants often enough to make it clear this is her default language. Otoh, she's not allowed to age (as opposed to Elizabeth); even the middle aged Mary who gets executed in the movie's opening and closing scenes looks like the young woman who returns to Scotland. Aging otherwise is extremely open to time travel; future James VI and I. goes from baby to at least old enough to hold out his arms and cry "Mama" when separated from Mary for good within the blink of an eye (whereas rl James was not even a year when last seeing his mother, and would have been cared for by a wetnurse anyway). That the movie tries to milk the (no longer a) baby James situation for maximum effect isn't surprising, though, given like so many takes on the Mary Stuart story it sees James ascending to the English throne as Mary's postumous triumph. (And, like to many others, this film does not mention James did his very best to make it clear the English court shouldn't take his token protest at the prospect of his mother's execution seriously by writing to Leicester what a fool he'd be to prefer his mother to the crown.) Mary's stillborn babies from Bothwell, otoh, do not get mentioned, which in a film that juxtaposes Mary the fruitful with Elizabeth the barren is, well, a choice.
Mind you, it was, of course, a big deal that Mary had a (male) child and Elizabeth did not. Elizabeth herself knew it was. But this move lets her obsess about Mary and her own lack of issue to the point where you'd think English politics were about nothing else. France? Spain? Was there something?
The film wants to have its cake and eat it when it comes to Elizabeth in general. On the one hand, it tries not to make her into the Evil Witch of the West, and goes for a "two women against the partriarchy" vibe, as well as a "she and Mary could have gotten along so well, if only..." one. Otoh, because we see her only in connection with Mary scenes and the second half of the film in particular presents her emotionally fraught and brittle to the point of hysteria throughout, she comes across as the lesser queen. (Notable exception: the scene with William Cecil on the rooftops, which is also the first scene I've seen which gets the Elizabeth and William Cecil relationship right, helped by Cecil not being presented as old enough to be her father - looking at you, Kapur - and showing them as the sovereign and closest official team they were.) Meanwhile, Mary gets the historical hero(ine) treatment that always irritates me, the one airbrushing out any attitudes not in tune with modern sensibilities. Religious partisanship is a Protestants only thing in this version. (Mind you, if you have John Knox - an unrecognizable David Tennant ranting with the best of them - as an opponent, you don't need any airbrushing to look like the more tolerant person.) This Mary would never stoop to making public cracks about her rival. ("The Queen of England will marry her master of the horses who has killed his wife to make room in his bed for her.") She writes "let's be true sisters" letters instead. While she dresses herself in red for her execution as per history to signal martyrdom, she dies for peace between Scotland and England in the person of her son, I kid you not; that the red was supposed to signal she sees herself as Catholic martyr dying for her religion is not mentioned. The time before her execution is also the only time we see Mary pray. There's a blink and you miss it sentence acknowledging the St. Bartholomew's Massacre having happened in France, no mention at all of Mary's Guise uncles and cousins being the leaders of the hardcore Catholic League, and thus zero sense as to why both English and Scottish Protestants were so paranoid about Mary the Catholic, when she's only depicted as the most tolerant person ever. The 1971 movie about Mary (starring Vanessa Redgrave as Mary and Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth) had invented an affair between Mary's second husband, Lord Darnley, and David Rizzio (who is in this new movie only shown in his capacity as musician; the fact that Mary makes him her secretary for relations with France gets not mentioned, which makes it again unexplained why the Scottish lords suddenly pick him to hate on and object to, other than "they're homophobes?"). This movie uses this invention from the 1971 film and piles up on it by making Rizzio also trans or at least genderfluid, and letting Mary tell him he can be a sister. (Darnley turning against him is presented as a mixture of weakness under pressure and jealousy because Rizzio's loyalties are more with Mary.) Far from alienating her Protestant half brother, this Mary does all she can to keep him on her side (and also defeats him in a battle she personally takes part in as the general, which even before looking it up I was able to say did not happen).
That the movie does not present her relationship with Bothwell as a romance but as him kidnapping, raping and forcing her into marriage is on just as solid historical foundation as the "romance" version (i.e. it is what Mary said happened later), and I'm on board with this. Clearing her of any knowledge about Darnley's impending assassination, otoh, well.... at least go with "don't want to know", movie, that's more plausible. The other problem with Mary only shown as brave, bold, and as a queen constantly making the right decisions is that her subjects going from being on her side to reviling her seemingly after a single hate mongering speech of John Knox's. Her deciding to go to England is presented as being without alternative (again, France, what's that?), which again avoids showing her making a mistake. The meeting with Elizabeth - there is no movie or drama which can avoid inventing a meeting between them, and I can understand why, if you have a story with two main characters - which by itself is a good scene, is practically the only time when I think Mary is shown making a mistake the narrative wants us to see she could have avoided. (As opposed to marrying Darnley; this is of course also a mistake, but not as one Mary could have avoided given the combination of him bringing his own claim to the succession on the table and being shown as charming pre marriage, along with skilled in providing oral sex.) To wit, getting angry when Elizabeth refuses military support to Mary to regain the throne up to the point when she says "I am your queen". But given the imperious side of Mary, which in rl alienated some of the people she couldn't afford alienating, got no outing before, it feels as too little, too late for me.
One more thing: if you cast Gemma Chan as Bess of Hardwick, why on earth don't you give her anything to do in the role but silently observe Elizabeth?
Lastly: if you know nothing at all about Mary and Elizabeth, will you enjoy it as a fictional story? You might: as I said, Saoirse Ronan is good at playing a brave young Queen holding her own in dire circumstances. (Not just in terms of courage. One of Mary's most impressive feats both in history and in this version remains that after Rizzio had been brutally murdered in front of her and she'd been held at gunpoint, she turned the situation around by using Darnley's vanity and weakness to talk him into changing sides, thus making her escape.) Margot Robbie's Elizabeth was too brittle and over the top for me (except for the aforementioned scene with Cecil, which I loved), but she might not be for you. The cinematography is gorgeous. But I can't help wishing both actresses had been given a different script.
Saoirse Ronan gives a good performance in the titular role, and while the Scottish accent is extremely not history (given how young Mary was when leaving Scotland to be raised at the French court), the movie actually lets Mary speak French with her attendants often enough to make it clear this is her default language. Otoh, she's not allowed to age (as opposed to Elizabeth); even the middle aged Mary who gets executed in the movie's opening and closing scenes looks like the young woman who returns to Scotland. Aging otherwise is extremely open to time travel; future James VI and I. goes from baby to at least old enough to hold out his arms and cry "Mama" when separated from Mary for good within the blink of an eye (whereas rl James was not even a year when last seeing his mother, and would have been cared for by a wetnurse anyway). That the movie tries to milk the (no longer a) baby James situation for maximum effect isn't surprising, though, given like so many takes on the Mary Stuart story it sees James ascending to the English throne as Mary's postumous triumph. (And, like to many others, this film does not mention James did his very best to make it clear the English court shouldn't take his token protest at the prospect of his mother's execution seriously by writing to Leicester what a fool he'd be to prefer his mother to the crown.) Mary's stillborn babies from Bothwell, otoh, do not get mentioned, which in a film that juxtaposes Mary the fruitful with Elizabeth the barren is, well, a choice.
Mind you, it was, of course, a big deal that Mary had a (male) child and Elizabeth did not. Elizabeth herself knew it was. But this move lets her obsess about Mary and her own lack of issue to the point where you'd think English politics were about nothing else. France? Spain? Was there something?
The film wants to have its cake and eat it when it comes to Elizabeth in general. On the one hand, it tries not to make her into the Evil Witch of the West, and goes for a "two women against the partriarchy" vibe, as well as a "she and Mary could have gotten along so well, if only..." one. Otoh, because we see her only in connection with Mary scenes and the second half of the film in particular presents her emotionally fraught and brittle to the point of hysteria throughout, she comes across as the lesser queen. (Notable exception: the scene with William Cecil on the rooftops, which is also the first scene I've seen which gets the Elizabeth and William Cecil relationship right, helped by Cecil not being presented as old enough to be her father - looking at you, Kapur - and showing them as the sovereign and closest official team they were.) Meanwhile, Mary gets the historical hero(ine) treatment that always irritates me, the one airbrushing out any attitudes not in tune with modern sensibilities. Religious partisanship is a Protestants only thing in this version. (Mind you, if you have John Knox - an unrecognizable David Tennant ranting with the best of them - as an opponent, you don't need any airbrushing to look like the more tolerant person.) This Mary would never stoop to making public cracks about her rival. ("The Queen of England will marry her master of the horses who has killed his wife to make room in his bed for her.") She writes "let's be true sisters" letters instead. While she dresses herself in red for her execution as per history to signal martyrdom, she dies for peace between Scotland and England in the person of her son, I kid you not; that the red was supposed to signal she sees herself as Catholic martyr dying for her religion is not mentioned. The time before her execution is also the only time we see Mary pray. There's a blink and you miss it sentence acknowledging the St. Bartholomew's Massacre having happened in France, no mention at all of Mary's Guise uncles and cousins being the leaders of the hardcore Catholic League, and thus zero sense as to why both English and Scottish Protestants were so paranoid about Mary the Catholic, when she's only depicted as the most tolerant person ever. The 1971 movie about Mary (starring Vanessa Redgrave as Mary and Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth) had invented an affair between Mary's second husband, Lord Darnley, and David Rizzio (who is in this new movie only shown in his capacity as musician; the fact that Mary makes him her secretary for relations with France gets not mentioned, which makes it again unexplained why the Scottish lords suddenly pick him to hate on and object to, other than "they're homophobes?"). This movie uses this invention from the 1971 film and piles up on it by making Rizzio also trans or at least genderfluid, and letting Mary tell him he can be a sister. (Darnley turning against him is presented as a mixture of weakness under pressure and jealousy because Rizzio's loyalties are more with Mary.) Far from alienating her Protestant half brother, this Mary does all she can to keep him on her side (and also defeats him in a battle she personally takes part in as the general, which even before looking it up I was able to say did not happen).
That the movie does not present her relationship with Bothwell as a romance but as him kidnapping, raping and forcing her into marriage is on just as solid historical foundation as the "romance" version (i.e. it is what Mary said happened later), and I'm on board with this. Clearing her of any knowledge about Darnley's impending assassination, otoh, well.... at least go with "don't want to know", movie, that's more plausible. The other problem with Mary only shown as brave, bold, and as a queen constantly making the right decisions is that her subjects going from being on her side to reviling her seemingly after a single hate mongering speech of John Knox's. Her deciding to go to England is presented as being without alternative (again, France, what's that?), which again avoids showing her making a mistake. The meeting with Elizabeth - there is no movie or drama which can avoid inventing a meeting between them, and I can understand why, if you have a story with two main characters - which by itself is a good scene, is practically the only time when I think Mary is shown making a mistake the narrative wants us to see she could have avoided. (As opposed to marrying Darnley; this is of course also a mistake, but not as one Mary could have avoided given the combination of him bringing his own claim to the succession on the table and being shown as charming pre marriage, along with skilled in providing oral sex.) To wit, getting angry when Elizabeth refuses military support to Mary to regain the throne up to the point when she says "I am your queen". But given the imperious side of Mary, which in rl alienated some of the people she couldn't afford alienating, got no outing before, it feels as too little, too late for me.
One more thing: if you cast Gemma Chan as Bess of Hardwick, why on earth don't you give her anything to do in the role but silently observe Elizabeth?
Lastly: if you know nothing at all about Mary and Elizabeth, will you enjoy it as a fictional story? You might: as I said, Saoirse Ronan is good at playing a brave young Queen holding her own in dire circumstances. (Not just in terms of courage. One of Mary's most impressive feats both in history and in this version remains that after Rizzio had been brutally murdered in front of her and she'd been held at gunpoint, she turned the situation around by using Darnley's vanity and weakness to talk him into changing sides, thus making her escape.) Margot Robbie's Elizabeth was too brittle and over the top for me (except for the aforementioned scene with Cecil, which I loved), but she might not be for you. The cinematography is gorgeous. But I can't help wishing both actresses had been given a different script.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 01:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 04:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 08:16 pm (UTC)Nice! (And I see he's played by Guy Pearce, whom I enjoy.)
The rest sounds frustrating.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-28 06:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-28 02:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-28 02:54 pm (UTC)Whereas this movie is the type of fiction that seems to believe the audience wouldn't sympathize with Mary if she was to display period-adherent attitudes, or would have contributed to her fate by some avoidable mistakes. Not fans of Aristoteles, clearly. :)
no subject
Date: 2020-10-28 03:56 pm (UTC)Have you watched Babylon Berlin?
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Date: 2020-10-28 07:01 pm (UTC)The Borgias: I really liked the first two seasons, and had serious problems with the third, except for a very few episodes. With that caveat, I found it an entertaining Renaissance melodrama, which is what I wanted, and with three dimensional characters, too. It's not as epic and challenging as Black Sails, but for my money ideal to watch in between - the first two seasons, that is.
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Date: 2020-11-04 12:46 pm (UTC)I'm not as big into Elizabethian history as I once was (I'm more familiar with Henry VIII's reign and the delicious drama there), so thank you for critiquing the historical side of things!
I feel like a lot of Hollywood movies lately suffer from the "same actors, different script" problem. I'm not quite sure why that is...
no subject
Date: 2020-11-05 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-05 05:46 pm (UTC)