Mary Queen of Scots (2018)

bnt

Due out in the UK & Ireland next January, and the USA in late December, presumably to meet the AMPAS cutoff date. Saoirse Ronan stars in the title role, with Margot Robbie as Queen Elizabeth. Also features David Tennant, Brendan Coyle, Guy Pearce, Jack Lowden (Calibre) as the ill-fated Lord Darnley, and Joe Alwyn (Taylor Swift's current boyfriend) as Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth's right-hand (?) man.

The casting leads me to think this will not be a strictly historic biopic, but that some revisionist liberties will be taken. The director, Josie Rourke, has mostly worked in theatre as Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse, and her production of Coriolanus with Tom Hiddleston was well-received and recorded for broadcast.

There's no trailer yet, so it's hard to say more than that, but there are some good photos on IMDB:

The Black Oil

Proper production values, etc, etc. Primed for Oscar season. Good trailer anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1GcEagzTDg

jaxxx

Is it just me or does anyone else think Margot looks completely horrible in every frame, something I thought completely impossible?

Definitely another Oscar contender for Saoirse anyway by the looks of it, and goddamn she's deserving of one as well. Though I wonder how long before the British media try and claim her as one of their own :rolleyes:

Sad Professor

jaxxx wrote: »

Is it just me or does anyone else think Margot looks completely horrible in every frame, something I thought completely impossible?

She’s playing Elizabeth I who contracted smallpox in her 20s, so her appearance will presumably deteriorate over the course of the film.

bnt

One comment on the trailer says it's inaccurate because Mary is speaking with a Scots accent: the theory goes that because Mary lived in France from the age of five and had all her education there, she would have spoken with a French accent. However, that's not necessarily true: she went there with a full court of Scots retainers who stayed with her. It wasn't "total immersion".

(I also have a counter-example in myself: I grew up in South Africa from the age of six, but never developed a South African accent because I had English-speakers around me most of the time, including at school. Afrikaans was a second language, and I can put on the accent if I want to ... but nobody wants that.)

If accuracy was critical, I'd be more concerned about height: Mary was about 5'11, up to six inches taller than Queen Elizabeth, so we'd want to see Karen Gillan in the role. I'm not too bothered. :cool:

BuyersRemorse

Saoirse Ronan: Jack of all accents, master of none.

Agent Coulson

jaxxx wrote: »

Is it just me or does anyone else think Margot looks completely horrible in every frame, something I thought completely impossible?

Definitely another Oscar contender for Saoirse anyway by the looks of it, and goddamn she's deserving of one as well. Though I wonder how long before the British media try and claim her as one of their own :rolleyes:

Why would the British media claim a New York born actress who would actually claim someone born in another Country.

CatFromHue

I think it's a bit much getting upset over something that hasn't actually happened.

She does live over there though.

razorblunt

Sure William Wallace came back from France with a Scottish accent, Braveheart showed us that!
Ronan's accent is proper braw!

Tony EH

bnt wrote: »

One comment on the trailer says it's inaccurate because Mary is speaking with a Scots accent: the theory goes that because Mary lived in France from the age of five and had all her education there, she would have spoken with a French accent. However, that's not necessarily true: she went there with a full court of Scots retainers who stayed with her. It wasn't "total immersion".

If accuracy was critical, I'd be more concerned about height: Mary was about 5'11, up to six inches taller than Queen Elizabeth, so we'd want to see Karen Gillan in the role. I'm not too bothered. :cool:

They also never actually met one another. I don't think the film will be that bothered with accuracy.

the purple tin

bnt wrote: »

One comment on the trailer says it's inaccurate because Mary is speaking with a Scots accent: the theory goes that because Mary lived in France from the age of five and had all her education there, she would have spoken with a French accent. However, that's not necessarily true: she went there with a full court of Scots retainers who stayed with her. It wasn't "total immersion".

(I also have a counter-example in myself: I grew up in South Africa from the age of six, but never developed a South African accent because I had English-speakers around me most of the time, including at school. Afrikaans was a second language, and I can put on the accent if I want to ... but nobody wants that.)

If accuracy was critical, I'd be more concerned about height: Mary was about 5'11, up to six inches taller than Queen Elizabeth, so we'd want to see Karen Gillan in the role. I'm not too bothered. :cool:

Mary was also nearly 20 years older than Liz but these films nearly always mangle the historical side of things.

Speedsie

the purple tin wrote: »

Mary was also nearly 20 years older than Liz but these films nearly always mangle the historical side of things.

Mary Queen of Scots was born in 1542, Elizabeth I in 1533.

Perhaps you are thinking of Elizabeth's sister, Mary l (bloody Mary) born in 1516.

the purple tin

Speedsie wrote: »

Mary Queen of Scots was born in 1542, Elizabeth I in 1533.

Perhaps you are thinking of Elizabeth's sister, Mary l (bloody Mary) born in 1516.

That's her. I'm a bit of a mangler myself

Thomas_IV

the purple tin wrote: »

bnt wrote: »

One comment on the trailer says it's inaccurate because Mary is speaking with a Scots accent: the theory goes that because Mary lived in France from the age of five and had all her education there, she would have spoken with a French accent. However, that's not necessarily true: she went there with a full court of Scots retainers who stayed with her. It wasn't "total immersion".

(I also have a counter-example in myself: I grew up in South Africa from the age of six, but never developed a South African accent because I had English-speakers around me most of the time, including at school. Afrikaans was a second language, and I can put on the accent if I want to ... but nobody wants that.)

If accuracy was critical, I'd be more concerned about height: Mary was about 5'11, up to six inches taller than Queen Elizabeth, so we'd want to see Karen Gillan in the role. I'm not too bothered. :cool:

Mary was also nearly 20 years older than Liz but these films nearly always mangle the historical side of things.

In the many films made about her she was always depicted as a dark haired woman. But in times of GoT and Netflix 'The Crown' they can do what they want and as they please and don't give a fiddlers about much accuracy. It is entertainment that counts in the first place, everything else is just some 'attachment' for dramatisation.

Not sure whether I am going to watch that film. First I will look what the trailer has to offer.

rossie1977

Second trailer. Robbie is unrecognizable in parts

fryup

jaxxx wrote: »

Though I wonder how long before the British media try and claim her as one of their own :rolleyes:

they can have her, she's a pain in the hole

anyway don't we claim Daniel Day Lewis??

JP Liz V1

Anyone thinking :P

spurious

Terrible load of old cobblers historically, though I did find myself enjoying this.
I found it just a tiny bit long.
I thought Margot Robbie was excellent, as was the guy playing Mary's half brother (James McArdle).
They certainly didn't mess about in those days - and we thought the FFers were double dealers?

branie2

I saw it on Friday, and I thought it was very good

smallgarden

I was a bit bored for most of it. I have watched Reign recently which covered a lot of it, with a few little differences.

Ariadne

I really enjoyed this film I have to say. Both Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie were excellent. My knowledge of the English monarchy is basic at best so I didn't notice the historical inaccuracies really, though I know that Mary and Elizabeth I never met alright. I think that scene added to the film though, it would have seemed a bit unresolved if there wasn't a meeting.

homerun_homer

I was surprised by how little Margot Robbie was in this overall. I just thought it was ok. I thought the direction was a bit bland. The one battle in it was very bloodless. Some of the casting choices threw me and left me scratching my head, taking me out of the movie.

Outlaw Pete

I enjoyed it overall (despite the historical inaccuracies). Margot's performance in particular.

Usually can't abide Ronan but she was more tolerable here. Perhaps because she was playing a somewhat unsavory character.

I think she has that in common with Streep, in that she'll always have to play a woman who's at least slightly unpleasant given how she, like Streep, injects a large chunk of her own personality into her performances.

Both have a coldness that neither (imv) appear to be able to leave in their trailer and so warm characters are (and were in the case of Streep) never going to be within her range.

pixelburp

I think squeezing Ronan and Robbie into the same film was a mistake: I get the thematic reasons for using the two women, trying as it was to draw parallels between the two cousins' lives, to insinuate some kind of tragic, long-distance kinship.

The end result though just made the film feel disjointed and more than a little structureless; neither locations ever had enough room to develop, and the constant jumping between Hollyrood & London left the narrative feeling like a series of reactions to letters, than any kind of living narrative story. A bit of a slog really, if truth be told.

SoupyNorman

I feel like I should have enjoyed it less then I actually did. Although I do like movies and TV shows from that time period (e.g. Wolf Hall) so I also enjoyed the type of language and costumes.

For me Saoirse gave the stronger performance, I personally did not think Margot had the accent down she seemed to struggle throughout the movie and I heard the Aussie slip through a few times.

TerrorFirmer

Wasn't really in the humor for this when I went to see it last night, but ended up thinking it was quite good, both leads are excellent and it tells a fairly complex story pretty well in a two hour window.

corminators

Appalling film. I'll consider not going to the cinema any more if this is where we've got to. Shovelling homosexuality and multiculturalism in every scene for no reason.
Bizarre stuff.

corminators

corminators wrote: »

Appalling film. I'll consider not going to the cinema any more if this is where we've got to. Shovelling homosexuality and multiculturalism in every scene for no reason.
Bizarre stuff.

Inserting social philosophy into popular film is the new product placement. No need for shiny Coke cans anymore!

corminators

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Inserting social philosophy into popular film is the new product placement. No need for shiny Coke cans anymore!

Yeah exactly. It reminded me when James bond took out a Sony laptop and popped me right out of the film.
It's so overdone it doesn't work.

*Shakes fist at Tavistock institute*

Tony EH

If it was a HP, would that be ok?

corminators

Tony EH wrote: »

If it was a HP, would that be ok?

Maybe. But not an apple as they are white. It's not politically correct to have a white one.
White bad.

bnt

You'd think that the starter of this thread would make more of an effort to see this movie, but the reviews didn't make it sound all that great. My first problem was with the locations: it seems like half of the film was shot in Glencoe, which is beautiful, but on the other side of Scotland from where the action happened. Holyrood Palace is in Edinburgh, which was a decent-sized city at the time.

I thought the general sequence of events was portrayed fairly accurately early on, but with some omissions or over-simplification later on. The idea of Rizzio as gay is not actually unique to this film, in previous versions of this story it was used to explain how he could be such a close companion of the Queen without fear of adultery.

Crucially, they did not show that Mary's marriage to Bothwell was a Protestant ceremony, something the staunchly Catholic Mary would not have entered freely: her hand was forced. So, at the same time as John Knox was accusing her of having Darnley murdered and marrying the murderer, she lost her Catholic support, leaving her with few allies on either side. Historically, the details of her marriage to Bothwell are crucial in explaining Mary's fall from grace and what happened afterwards.

The events after Mary's abdication are also glossed over, such as how she raised an army to confront the lords who forced her abdication, but which deserted and left her with no option but to try to escape to France. The escape attempt is completely left out: after the fictionalised conversation with Elizabeth, the film cuts straight to Mary in captivity, and her end.

I understand the artistic license that filmmakers have, to change history and imagine different outcomes. In this I'm reminded of Tarantino's last couple of movies, which deviated from history too. By the time Mary, Queen of Scots was executed, she was much older and in poor health, which was not shown here, but I can accept that the execution scene was portrayed from Elizabeth's imagination, not as it was.

But when I think of you, I see not an aged woman, but rather the young, resplendent queen whose portrait I first gazed upon five and twenty years ago, and whose beauty shone so brightly when we met, despite her despair.