Mary Queen Of Scots Review: A Royal Performance

This retelling is based on the ground-breaking book Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart by Dr John Guy and provides a new perspective on a woman who’s been wildly misunderstood over the centuries. Mary’s often been depicted as weak, but in this film, we see her ferocious, powerful and pragmatic.

Dublin-raised Saoirse, who plays Mary, was only 18 when she was first attached to the role. “As an actor, I know how lucky I am to have been entrusted with it,” says the 24-year-old. “That wasn’t something I was going to abandon. I always had faith it would come together at the right time.”   
 
Mary was just six days old when she ascended to the Scottish throne in 1542 following the death of her father King James V. For her own safety, she spent her formative years in France while Scotland was ruled by male regents. She became Queen Consort at 16; was widowed at 18 and returned to Scotland a year later to take up her rightful throne. Mary, a Catholic, had a rival claim to England’s throne and her return was met with suspicion by her Protestant cousin and England’s monarch, Queen Elizabeth I. She also faced treachery and rebellion closer to home.

No wonder Working Title’s Tim Bevan, who also co-produced Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age starring Cate Blanchett, thought it was time Mary had a movie of her own. “In the 10 years Mary lived in Scotland, she packed in a lot of life. Two husbands, two battles, there was a lot of drama to be had,” he says. And it’s not lost on anyone that both Mary and Elizabeth faced challenges that are as resonant today as they were almost 500 years ago. “The point was to make the film about these two women existing in a male world, learning how to use their powers and one of them ultimately being outmanoeuvred,” notes Tim. “It felt very relevant in terms of equality in the workplace and all of the issues we’re reading about on a day-to-day basis. These are strong women wrestling with power, politics and love.”

“This is, in part, a film about their psychological obsession with each other,” says Josie Rourke, the film’s director and artistic director of London’s Donmar Warehouse. “We see how Mary’s in Elizabeth’s mind, burrowing into her consciousness and starting to affect her choices, in all areas of her life. Only they can truly and fully understand each other. They’re two women either side of the same coin.”

The cost of power is very much a running theme so it’s apt Beau Willimon who wrote the political thriller The Ides of March and the Netflix series House of Cards was tasked with the screenplay. “One of the things people find so pleasurable about House of Cards is it felt like a kind of Renaissance drama, a revenge play,” comments Josie. “There are lots of people plotting and scheming. In a way, this is the period of our history in which modern politics was invented.”