OVP: Mary Queen of Scots (2018)

Film: Mary Queen of Scots (2018)
Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie, Jack Lowden, Joe Alwyn, David Tennant, Guy Pearce
Director: Josie Rourke
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Costume Design, Makeup & Hairstyling)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars


Compared to Vice, pretty much anything would be considered a step-up, so Mary has the advantage of being paired with one of the more unpleasant movies I watched in 2018, and by comparison it's considerably better.  For starters, I didn't leave this movie seething with rage, both at the protagonists and at the director for have no perspective on the main characters.  But just because it's sitting alongside something as bad as Vice doesn't make Mary Queen of Scots worth saving.  A stronger effort, but a pretty generic one that has been told a thousand times, and not even two of the most promising young actresses working today can save it from being anything other than disposable.

(You really need a spoiler alert here?) The film focuses mostly on the early life of Queen Mary (Ronan), from her time returning to Scotland after her husband died in France, to eventual rebellions against her rule and her being imprisoned by her cousin Elizabeth (Robbie), who would eventually have her executed for treason.  In a year brimming with category fraud, you'll be forgiven for assuming that Robbie is a co-lead before viewing it, but this really is more Mary's story than Elizabeth's, which is something of a change-of-pace for this (cinematically very well trod) tale.  The film follows Mary as she struggles with her all-male counsel, her complicated marriage to Lord Henry Darnley (Lowden), and how she eventually is out-maneuvered by the noblemen who steal her baby and make her abdicate the throne.

The film has very little in the way of character understanding, which is a shame as this is a pretty good cast.  Mary, as played by Ronan, gives a number of truly fine speeches, but we don't get to know much about her other than a 21st century-type of feminism that feels historically inaccurate in the context of the film.  Look at the way that Ronan seems so understanding of her friend's homosexuality, or how Elizabeth's entire existence is predicated on a decision of "whether to marry or not to marry."  These are the writers striving for a more modern-telling of the story, but in the process they sacrifice a lot of realism without much reward.  One could argue the most interesting character in the film is Lord Darnley, himself a valid claimant to the English throne, one could argue just as valid as the one that Mary held though that's little explored here (they both gained their claim to the English throne through their grandmother Margaret Tudor, who was the eldest daughter of King Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth's paternal aunt), and is played in the film as gay.  I liked the way that Lowden gave him a sense of pathetic entitlement, but the writers don't seem to have much to say about anyone other than the queens, and as a result he's lost, as is Joe Alwyn's Robert Dudley (yet another 2018 role where Alwyn's unnatural beauty is the main asset he's allowed on the screen).  The movie as a result meanders and plods, leading up to the only thing worth mentioning: the meeting of the two queens.

Here, we are gifted a pretty rare treat-a truly great scene in a film that is otherwise mediocre.  Ronan & Robbie, only sharing the screen for a few minutes, make the most of it with truly splendid line delivery and a well-choreographed walk through a series of sheets.  In a better film, this would have been truly spellbinding and legendary-two sometimes sisters, sometimes rivals who nonetheless respect the other for being the only person who understands their strife, finally speaking unfiltered without fear of retribution, perhaps for the only time in their lives.  Both actresses nail the scene, and if Robbie gets an unlikely Oscar nomination for this picture (as she did with the SAG Awards), this is easily her clip.  Unfortunately, it just stands out like a sore thumb as too-good-for-the-movie, which is otherwise generic and a blip on both actress's trajectories.