“Mary Queen of Scots explores the turbulent life of the charismatic Mary Stuart (Academy Award nominee Saoirse Ronan). Queen of France at 16, widowed at 18, Mary defies pressure to remarry and instead returns to her native Scotland to reclaim her rightful throne. By birth, she also has a rival claim to the throne of Elizabeth I (Academy Award nominee Margot Robbie), who rules as the Queen of England. Determined to rule as much more than a figurehead, Mary asserts her claim to the English throne threatening Elizabeth’s sovereignty. Rivals in power and in love, the two Queens make very different choices about marriage and children. Betrayal, rebellion, and conspiracies within each court imperil both Queens – driving them apart, as each woman experiences the bitter cost of power.” – Official Synopsis
This was an incredibly well made film. Just about every “t” was crossed and every “i” dotted.
The cinematography was wonderful. Some of the shots looked like romantic paintings.
The acting was great. The special feature, “An Epic Confrontation” mentions that the climactic scene where the two queens meet was Margot Robbie’s last day of shooting, but Saoirse Ronan’s first day of shooting. Ronan plays this character immaculately. The character felt lived in, like they had really been through it all, even though it was just the beginning.
The make-up was spot-on as well. For Queen Elizabeth I, it really looks like she has pox scars under her period cosmetics. The scenes that show her with smallpox succeed because it truly looks disgusting.
The writing was incredibly well paced. The film is a little over two-hours long and it doesn’t feel like it. With that pace, they could have easily gone longer and it wouldn’t have been tiring. They managed to capture all of the important information to the story efficiently in each scene. According to “An Epic Confrontation” some of the scenes were fabricated. However, as it was stated in the feature, these scenes were necessary for a sense of closure and to tell a good story.
As a small tangent, I came across a problem when I was first drafting the review for this film. I honestly didn’t know what I was going to say about it. It’s pretty cut and dry that this is a great film. What more can I add?
As I mulled it over, I recalled a critique I once read about the Sir Walter Scott novel Ivanhoe (maybe I was just in a Scottish mood). The critique noted that Scott wrote almost exclusively about Scottish heroes until Ivanhoe, which is about an English hero. They also stated that Ivanhoe was published around the time that Scotland was looking into joining Great Britain. The author proposed the idea that Scott may have been possibly looking to help curry the favor of the public towards joining Great Britain with this novel.
The point of this is that there is a question to answer: “Why tell this story now?”. Similar to Scott, the story being told is centuries old. There are clearly defined records of what happened. Why is it important now?
At its core Mary Queen of Scots is a tale about two women who are leaders. They are doing their best to forge ahead in a man’s world. Now, today, things are infinitely better for women, but there’s still a ways to go: in leadership roles and countless other industries. The story of these queens is important today because it shows women with conviction taking a stand for themselves. While they had different mentalities, both held fast to what they believed was the right course of action. No matter what any man told them to do.
This story is important because it shows not only what to look up to, but what went wrong. It sets an example for everyone to look at and work hard to make things better than it was before.
