Mary, Queen of Scots is a biopic starring Saoirse Ronan as the title character, Margot Robbie as Elizabeth I and a whole host of other actors in support including Jack Lowden, David Tennant and Guy Pearce. It tells the story of Mary’s return to Scotland from France, conflict with England and ill-fated marriage to Lord Darnley (Lowden). It is directed by Josie Rourke, making her feature film debut.
Now, in my opinion in order to be a good biopic, the film would have to be both realistic and entertaining. Some biopics lean one way or another and can still be good, but ideally you would be both. For example, a film like The Social Network may not be entirely accurate to exactly what happened, but it is very entertaining, while films like First Man or The Imitation Game are realistic, but not incredibly entertaining. Nevertheless, these are all good films. Mary, Queen of Scots however fails at being either entertaining or realistic and in this review I will explain how.
Firstly, the film is not entertaining at all. There are long scenes in which nothing happens except constant expository dialogue. It is also very confusing and meanders around, often making it confusing to know who is how and whats going on. Characters seem to appear, disappear and reappear later on for no clear reason. At the start, the film sets up as telling the story of both Mary and Elizabeth, but about half way through abandons that in favour of just telling Mary’s story, only for Elizabeth to appear again at the end. The film is tedious and when it isn’t tedious it is often confusing.
Secondly, the film is not realistic. Close to the end of the film Elizabeth and Mary meet. Now in reality, there is no evidence to suggest that these two people met AT ALL. Now, if you set your film up as something like Inglorious Basterds, where we can discount historical accuracy completely, then something like this would be fair enough, but thats not what the film does, so you can’t include something that blatantly didn’t happen for the sake of drama. It’s akin to Hitler going for a pint with Stalin halfway through Downfall. The characters themselves are unrealistic too. The film attempts to impose 21st Century values onto Mary, turning her into more of a hero, than she would’ve been in reality. She also wouldn’t have had a Scottish accent as she lived in France from the age of five to eighteen. Elizabeth on the other hand, instead of being a complex character, manipulated by her court to the point of extreme paranoia, was turned into a woman hung up on her lack of a husband and child. If the film had been more entertaining, I could have forgiven the film for some of this, but it wasn’t so I can’t.
So, overall, I can’t recommend Mary, Queen of Scots, either as an entertaining film or a historical accurate portrayal of the Tudor period. You will neither be entertained nor learn anything about the central character that you couldn’t read in a book in a non-confusing way. Very disappointing. 1.5 Stars.
Movie Night 