You have the boldness to doubt my judgement! (Mary Queen of Scots 2018)

 

 

 

223.

Mary Queen of Scots

 

 
 
 

5/10

 

Looks like I'm about to get a history lesson in the British monarchy. With Saoirse Ronan as Mary and Margot Robbie as Queen Lizzie the first, the trailer shows us them in their period pieces, sometimes looking unrecognisable. The movie did take my interest with some possibility of some in-field action hitting the screen, it gave me a  bit of hope that this wasn't just going to be about the politics of the situation. Oh, how I was wrong, in so many ways. I only know the history of this in what I learnt at school and what I remember, this movie was far from correct.
The movie begins with us watching Mary walking through a crowd of people wanting to witness her beheading. As she lays her head, we are sent back in time to when she arrived from France, wanting to overthrow her cousin Elizabeth I.

 

 Both experience their own struggles as Elizabeth has contracted smallpox and has started to turn a little less attractive and is clearly feeling it. As for Mary, she has gotten married to fella who turns out for enjoy the male company instead. She forces him to impregnant her and claims the baby as the heir to Scotland and England, even asking her cousin to be the Godmother. Because Lizzie doesn't have a child, a deal is sticken that if it stays this way, Mary's kid James shall become the King. This is confirmed by text at the end of the movie, which heads back to Mary on the block waiting for the chop. Lizze had caught Mary for betraying her and jailed her, she would look after her until she found evidence that the Scot conspired with the enemy so has no choice to seperate her head from her body.

 

This movie didnt exactly follow history step by step and I'm so disappointed if movies are caving in in this way. I'm for diversity but history would show that black men as nobles were not a thing for the time. There was too much focus on the sexuality and homosexuality in this movie and I was half expecting to see a guy roll up in a wheelchair, no offence meant by this. History shows that Mary and Elizabeth never met, this movie has more than one meeting between the two.

 

 

The historical fiction in this movie could confuse may a viewer. The scenes and cinematography didn't need much tampering as a lot took place in the beautiful countryside and the acting wasn't too bad either. Seeing Robbie as this flapping Queen who remained a virgin and cunning intellect, whilst up north, Mary was seeing the hard times. Having her baby ripped from her, her lover being killed in front of her and constantly being questioned, simply for being a woman, Ronan kept her shit together on the screen very well. I left the cinema thinking that is was nothing more than average and even one epic battle scene would have helped it one it's way, even if there wasn't one in this moment of history, add one! They added some other shit that didn't happen.