AN ERA
But proves unconvincing and dull
courts. Mary’s reign involved battles, betrayal, murder and daring escapes from Scottish castles, including one where her conspirators threw a boozy party and dressed her up as a servant.
Here we get a brief skirmish, and a horrible scene where her crossdressing confidant David Rizzio (Ismael Cruz Cordova, inset left) is butchered in front of her.
But the conflict mostly plays out as a series of long-distance arguments conducted across the border by men in tights.
The English send a Protestant English lord to Scotland and order Mary to marry him.
She refuses and announces her engagement to a Catholic English lord (Jack Lowden). The English then send an ambassador who tells her to dump him.
She sends him back to tell them to do one. Between scenes of scheming men whispering sexist insults, we cut between Mary behaving heroically and and a pox-ridden Elizabeth playing with flowers and looking thoroughly pathetic.
To make the Scottish queen the heroine, they felt they had to turn the English queen into a simpering dolt. As the real Elizabeth held on to the throne for 45 years and fought off an Armada, this feels rather unfair.
More importantly, it work dramatically. Mary Queen Of Scots, isn’t just unconvincing, it’s also dull. doesn’t