Women control interesting game of thrones
Like “The Favourite,” "Mary Queen of Scots”
— the story of the titular Titian-haired monarch who returned to her native Scotland in 1561 to take her place on the throne — is filled with palace intrigue; power plays; and tetchy, protofeminist frenemy-ship.
But even as it indulges its share of "Favourite"-level revisionism, the engaging period drama plays it relatively straight in terms of the courtly manners and scheming competition viewers might expect from a good, old-fashioned Tuds-andstuds showdown.
The "Tud," of course, is Tudor descendant Elizabeth I, who, when Mary makes her claim in Scotland, must navigate the development both as a carefully tended alliance and a serious danger to her own all-powerful standing as the rightful English sovereign.
Based on John Guy's award-winning biography, "Mary Queen of Scots" focuses mostly on the young, widowed Mary Stuart as she plots her consolidation of power, considers various suitors, navigates a disastrous marriage and communicates with her cousin Elizabeth in a series of diplomatically worded letters dripping with unspoken parries and thrusts.
The film, directed by Josie Rourke from a script by "House of Cards" writer Beau Willimon, often feels more dutiful than imaginative, despite some nontraditional casting choices (Gemma Chan and Adrian Lester, who are of Asian and African descent respectively, have prominent roles in Elizabeth's court; the Puerto Rican actor Ismael Cruz Cordova plays Mary's Italian friend, David Rizzio).
The drama, such as it is, transpires in an episodic collection of expository scenes meant to impart huge amounts of information with efficiency and clarity, whether it's David Tennant’s Protestant cleric John Knox railing against Queen Mary or Guy Pearce's William Cecil pouring both poison and prudence into Elizabeth's ear.
The net effect is a film that's not particularly cinematic (Rourke is a lauded theater director in London) but is intriguing and handsomely conceived. The most spirited heart and poignant soul of the film are Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie as Mary and Elizabeth, whose contradictory relationship accommodates hostility, jealousy, admiration and sisterly love with affecting seamlessness.
Outfitted in a marvelous set of elaborate wigs, Ronan portrays Mary as both gutsy and guileless, an impulsive but disarmingly straightforward leader with a refreshing common touch. And Robbie
brings stores of empathy to a monarch who at one point wistfully notes that she has become "more man than woman," her emotional and sexual needs subsumed by the state she rules and comes to personify.
Although Elizabeth and Mary never actually met, "Mary Queen of Scots" doesn't let that fact get in the way of a scene late in the film that's staged too cleverly by half.
Still, the deep feelings that coursed between these figures make for an absorbing, thought-provoking meditation on one of history's great what-ifs: Had the two fascinating, formidable women been allowed to collaborate without petty male egos and religious feuds swirling around them, heaven knows what they might have accomplished.