At the outset I was looking forward to it for two reasons: (i) I know the story well, and (ii) Ronan and Robie are two of the best young actresses working today. But notwithstanding the feminist director and the diversity casting gimmick, this looks like the same old sexist romantic hogwash.
Ever since Schiller's Maria Stuart, writers of historical fiction have sympathized with Mary's emotion driven bad choices, while trashing Elizabeth I as a cold, vain, barren shrew who denied her female nature in order to rule. Never mind that old Liz was a far better and more successful politician than any of the Stuarts, two of whom were driven into exile and two of whom got their heads cut off. (That's 3, not 4 -- Mary managed both.) Never mind that Elizabeth completely dominated her male advisors and made sure they never forgot she was Henry VIII's daughter. Never mind that Mary lost her head for conspiring to have Elizabeth murdered so that she could become queen and return England to the true Catholic faith. Never mind, most of all, that Elizabeth's Parliamentary and Protestant state is the ancestor of American institutions, that the Stuarts were absolutists and either outright or crypto-Catholics, and that our Anglo-American ideas of liberty and constitutional government were developed in reaction to what the Stuarts tried and failed to achieve. No, all that matters is that Mary is a tragic figure who acted on her feelings, like a woman is supposed to, instead of using brains, foresight and self-control like Elizabeth did.
This movie is more of the same, only with the third wave feminist twist that both women were oppressed because the patriarchy didn't allow them to wield power and be true to their female selves at the same time.
Ever since Schiller's Maria Stuart, writers of historical fiction have sympathized with Mary's emotion driven bad choices, while trashing Elizabeth I as a cold, vain, barren shrew who denied her female nature in order to rule. Never mind that old Liz was a far better and more successful politician than any of the Stuarts, two of whom were driven into exile and two of whom got their heads cut off. (That's 3, not 4 -- Mary managed both.) Never mind that Elizabeth completely dominated her male advisors and made sure they never forgot she was Henry VIII's daughter. Never mind that Mary lost her head for conspiring to have Elizabeth murdered so that she could become queen and return England to the true Catholic faith. Never mind, most of all, that Elizabeth's Parliamentary and Protestant state is the ancestor of American institutions, that the Stuarts were absolutists and either outright or crypto-Catholics, and that our Anglo-American ideas of liberty and constitutional government were developed in reaction to what the Stuarts tried and failed to achieve. No, all that matters is that Mary is a tragic figure who acted on her feelings, like a woman is supposed to, instead of using brains, foresight and self-control like Elizabeth did.
This movie is more of the same, only with the third wave feminist twist that both women were oppressed because the patriarchy didn't allow them to wield power and be true to their female selves at the same time.