TWO women besieged by plotters and critics but determined to hold on to power. As a certain politician might say, REMIND you of anyone?
One can imagine both Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon finding a lot that is pertinent in Josie Rourke’s determinedly modern drama.
Not modern in the sense that everyone wears jeans and jumpers. Heaven forbid. Rourke’s day job is artistic director at the Donmar Warehouse in London, and she puts her eye for staging to sumptuous use in recreating the 16th century courts of Mary and Elizabeth (the film is Bafta nominated for hair and make-up and costume design).
Where Rourke’s drama is of the here and now is in its feminist retelling of Mary’s story, in particular the way it places the blame for her downfall on misogyny. This is a #MeToo Mary Queen of Scots.
As for how Scotland comes across, it looks magnificent, but politically we appear a right shower, a mob straight outta Game of Thrones who love fighting and copulating in equal measure. Decide for yourself the accuracy of that.
ROSEMARY GORING: Scotland would have been better off without Mary Queen of Scots
Saoirse Ronan plays Mary (the role taken by Vanessa Redgrave in 1971), as a budding flower of Scotland, brimming with determination that Elizabeth shall name her as successor. It is not long till she experiences the wrath of John Knox (David Tennant, fulminating magnificently in a Hagrid-style beard). “We have a scourge upon the land. It is worse than pestilence, it is a woman with a crown.”
With a screenplay by Beau Willimon, based on John Guy’s Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart, the film is built around an event that did not happen: the meeting of Elizabeth and Mary. Though this might dismay purists, it works well as a plot driver. When the two finally get together it marks the point of no return for Mary, post the savage murder of David Rizzio, and post accusations of her adultery.
Ronan looks stunning in the role, her red hair glowing, that Celtic complexion radiant. Have no fear: the Scots accent passes muster. Elizabeth, played by Margot Robbie (Australian, Scots parents, the irony), is equally breathtaking, though in different ways. Robbie has the more complex character in the barren queen who was a better politician than most around her, and she duly rips the bones from the part, hence the Bafta nomination for best supporting actress.
At the rushed but thrilling end it is Ronan who dominates, her final look to camera enough to chill the blood. The woman who loved Scotland not wisely but too well. For two majestic, enthralling hours, she lives again.
ROSEMARY GORING: Scotland would have been better off without Mary Queen of Scots
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