Known for creating the American House of Cards (which he directly ran for its first four seasons) and co-writing The Ides of March (based on his own play), Beau Willimon is no stranger to stories of political chicanery, and he flexes similar muscles in his screenplay for Mary Queen of Scots. Nearly every scene in this two-hour film finds a character arguing for and/or maneuvering toward power, and there is a near constant tension as to who is deceiving or manipulating whom. The result is a fast pace and a fairly gripping melodrama, though at times it feels as if the material would be better served as a miniseries than a feature film. It rarely (too rarely, perhaps) slows down to let the audience absorb the atmosphere and customs of its 16th-century milieu.

There are also a few notably contemporary beats, and I suspect reactions to them will range from delight to triggered rage should the film become popular enough. Mary, for instance, accepts a confidante's assertion of a non-binary gender identity in a sweet-if-heavy-handed moment. There is also colorblind casting (such as Gemma Chan, a British actress of Chinese descent, playing Bess of Hardwick), prioritizing production diversity over historical accuracy.

Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie are spellbinding as Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I, respectively. With her compelling blend of fortitude and melancholy, Robbie's supporting performance proves a worthy companion to the great Elizabeths of film and television past, including Cate Blanchett and Helen Mirren (for HBO in 2005). The ensemble cast also includes Guy Pearce as Elizabeth's chief advisor William Cecil and David Tennant, devouring the scenery beneath an enormous beard as fiery Scottish-reformation figurehead John Knox.

This was quite entertaining. The running time went by fairly quickly. I thought Ronan was great and Robbie was good. She doesn't have very much to do. The production looks very nice.


8/10 (B+)

I thought Margot was fantastic in this. That scene where they finally meet is really quite great.

Love Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie is also good in the 10 minutes of screen time she gets. This is little more than the most generic of Oscar bait though and it goes on forever. It's never a good sign when you think a movie is about to end and realize there is still 35 minutes left and those 35 minutes consist of exactly the same stuff you've been watching for the previous two hours. I have little patience for the Scottish (and Irish) to begin with, but my goodness all these people were horrible. I was hoping Saoirse would go "The Bells" at the end and am still a bit bummed it didn't happen. I know that's not historically accurate, but the rest of the movie didn't seem too concerned about accuracy so why not add some dragons? I guess Mary was more of a Stannis than a Daenarys. Always whining about her birthright and doing very little about it.

C- . Still love Saoirse though.

Came across this on Netflix, I didn't care too much for missing this in 2018, but I had some interest to learn about the historical part of it. And I ended up liking that about it too, its historical elements and for a period film it's quite easy to watch. But it also takes a lot of liberties with historical accuracy and the story, it feels unnecessary flashy because of that and detracts from the impact it has. The script and screenplay simply lack depth to make this very engaging, especially in the second half, and it has too much in common with soapy tv. Ronan and Robbie are both good, also like Pearce, but the rest of the cast are mostly unknowns for me and they're not able to make much out of their lines. So I'm glad this exists for bringing a piece of history to my attention, but the execution is very half-hearted.

C