The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Leading ladies
‘Mary Queen of Scots’ lifted by its pair of queens, Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie
“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.
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.
While Mary faces opposition in the form of the powerful leader of Scotland’s Protestants, John Knox (David Tennant), she also is confronted with intense pressure to wed. She is open to marrying again, she says, “but not if I am owned.”
Primarily, her eyes are the throne held by her cousin, Elizabeth. Mary pressures the queen to name her Elizabeth’s eventual successor — a request the monarch resists.
Elizabeth, meanwhile, has absolutely no desire to marry, content with her intimate relationship with courtier Dudley (Joe Alwyn), who, in fact, would like to marry her. Instead, Elizabeth suggests he wed Mary and become king of Scotland. He does not like this suggestion, asking her why he is good enough to be that country’s king but not England’s.
“England is not Scotland,” she scolds him.
Mary also does not fancy this idea, saying she has no interest in a joining with her cousin’s “special friend.” However, she soon is wooed by an English nobleman, Lord Darnley (Jack Lowden).
Ah, but once they are wed, his charming side quickly disappears, and another aspect of his personality surfaces. (Again, dudes are just a real bummer throughout “Mary Queen of Scots.”)
From there, the film essentially engages in its version of a history lesson, showing us the maneuvers of Mary’s enemies and her countermoves. Know simply that she is not a woman to be taken lightly.
Neither is Elizabeth, who both fears and admires her cousin from afar. Elizabeth is a fascinating character, who at one point tells a confidant she sees herself more like a man than a woman when it comes to being a leader.
In the role, Robbie (“I, Tonya,” “Suicide Squad”) is increasingly unrecognizable as an illness wreaks havoc on Elizabeth’s appearance. Prosthetics aside, it is an excellent supporting performance by Robbie, whom you come to root for along with Mary.
However, the spotlight is, of course on the prolific Ronan, nominated for an Academy Award for her starring turn in last year’s highly enjoyable “Lady Bird” and whose credits also include “Atonement” and “Brooklyn.” Her Mary is fierce yet sympathetic, Ronan unsurprisingly keeping you highly invested in the character throughout the film.
Obviously, the male performers — who also include Guy Pearce, as Sir William Cecil, Elizabeth’s chief advisor, and Ismael Cruz Cordova, as David Rizzio, a musician in Mary’s court who feels quite at home among her female servants — take a backseat in “Mary Queen of Scots,” but all turn in solid work. Lowden (“Dunkirk”) is worthy of a bit of extra praise, considering what is required of the character.
In the hands of Willimon — the creator of “House of Cards” whose credits also include “The Ides of March”
In the role, Robbie is increasingly unrecognizable as an illness wreaks havoc on Elizabeth’s appearance.
— “Mary Queen of Scots” can feel unsatisfyingly episodic. Everything he gives us storywise is interesting, but the movie presents one thing after another instead of feeling like it’s truly building something.
It is nonetheless an admirable cinematic debut for Rourke, who has been directing works on stage since 2000. “Mary Queen of Scots” is a beautiful film, chock full of scenes of Scotland’s landscapes and others taking place inside magnificent castles. Rourke does seem just a bit inexperienced, through, never more so than in a climactic meeting between Mary and Elizabeth in which the director aims for artistic but ends up with awkward in terms of staging.
After Rourke finally returns us to the heartbreaking scene teased at the film’s beginning, we leave knowing more about the strong women at its heart.