Fake Scots with heavy accent on diversity

IT’S a good time for women to reign on screen. Olivia Colman is scooping up awards as mad, sad Queen Anne in The Favourite, and this year takes over from Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s The Crown.

Last night, an Edinburgh audience got a first look at Irish actress Saoirse Ronan portraying the tempestuous Mary Stuart, who goes head to head with Margot Robbie’s Elizabeth I.

Yes, it’s another Mary, Queen of Scots drama.

Mary has fascinated film-makers for almost as long as there has been cinema. At the dawn of film-making in 1895, a short American movie recreated the scene of her execution, unsettling audiences with its frankness.

Since then, her life has been replayed to the point where you have to wonder if there is anything left that can startle or provoke audiences.

Josie Rourke’s modish feminist version gives it a darn good try, suggesting that Mary arrived back in Scotland after the death of her husband, the Dauphin of France, with a raft of progressive ideas.

Not only is she tolerant of religious beliefs, but she also takes a liberal view on sexuality, even when she discovers that her next husband, Darnley, has been unable to resist seducing her favourite courtier.

Meanwhile, down in London, Elizabeth’s court is a lot more diverse than seems historically likely, with Gemma Chan as lady-in-waiting Bess of Hardwick, and Adrian Lester as ambassador to Scotland Lord Randolph.

There are other historical departures to which we are more accustomed. Mary and Elizabeth meet up, as in most other films, even though historians attest that Elizabeth was very careful to avoid meeting her younger, prettier, more charming cousin.

Still, restricting the two women to bouts of impassioned letter scribbling is hardly the stuff of exciting character conflict. There is also a neat moment where Elizabeth tells her cousin that if she ever discloses their meeting, she will deny it. How convenient. Where the film scores is its effort to move beyond the familiar story we all know so well, where the two women are little more than caricatures – the pearlstringed floozy and the ruffed virgin, each studded with pearls.

This new movie strains for something more complex: the story of two women in power, at a time when men were far from comfortable with this.

You might argue, at a time when Nicola Sturgeon reigns in Scotland while Theresa May grapples to wield political might in the south, that this story has never been more timely. Robbie is up for a Bafta, but I greatly admired Ronan’s portrait of frustrated, wilful Mary. She is fiercely charismatic, although many have pointed out that Mary was raised in France, and consequently spoke with a French accent, rather than Ronan’s clipped brogue.

Some may wonder why Mary is not played by a Scot, and bankability is probably the answer.

No Scottish actress in her early twenties has the visibility of three-times Oscar-nominated Ronan. Besides, there are plenty of Scots in her court, including Jack Lowden, Martin Compston and David Tennant.

Overall, I’m inclined to put the accent on the positive and give this latest retelling some credit for ambition, and capturing a strong sense of the plots and manipulations in both courts.

But as a London-based production, it is also a reminder that if we can’t sustain a Scottish film industry and its talent, then someone else will tell our stories – and not always the way we might want.