‘Mary Queen of Scots’ lifted by its pair of queens, Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie

While “Mary” — directed by theater veteran Josie Rourke, working from a script by Beau Willimon, adapting John Guy’s book “Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart” — suffers some issues related to narrative momentum, it is a compelling, fairly engrossing watch, thanks a great deal to its leading ladies.

The film begins, artfully and dramatically, with Mary’s beheading in England in 1587, an event to which Rourke eventually will return us. However, Mary’s tale soon begins, chronologically, in 1561, the notyet-20-year-old returning home after a life in France and a marriage to a man who reigned briefly as king, before his death.

Having been born a Catholic and sent to France for her safety, she returns to a land in which many would like to be practicing Catholics despite rule by the Protestant English. Scotland has been led, in her place, by her half-brother Moray (James McArdle), who knows she must now lead.

“Mary Queen of Scots” is a film centered around two smart, strong, independent and very determined women. It is otherwise largely populated by scheming, violent and cowardly men. ¶ “How cruel men are,” Margot Robbie’s Queen Elizabeth I opines at one point. ¶ Ah, yes, cruel. We’d forgotten to mention the cruelty of these men. ¶ Of course, “Mary Queen of Scots,” a largely entertaining if at times frustrating chronicling of the tumultuous reign of Mary Stuart (Saoirse Ronan) over Scotland, is set in the late-1500s, so all such behavior by males is long a thing of the past. ¶ Ahem.