with Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie.

If only I could stop focusing on the high hair of Mary Queen of Scots, I might have paid closer attention to what she was saying, or doing, but the costumes and the hair styling, and the sweeping production of this movie overwhelm any sensible narrative.  There is a conflict between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scotland when she returns from France where her husband has died.  Elizabeth has decided not to marry, leaving the question of heirs in doubt.  Who is the legitimate heir to the throne?

Mary thinks she has a claim.  Elizabeth is certain the Tudors not the Stuarts should prevail.  Elizabeth dangles her very nice boyfriend, Robert Dudley, in front of Mary hoping that the combination will solve the problem.  Then Lord Darnley arrives with his luckless pappy in tow, who needs a leg up in the privy council, and after thirty minutes, Mary for some reason is smitten.  It is true, he is good looking, but would you marry someone so hastily just in order to produce an heir?

So Mary turns out not to be the stalwart clear thinker we had started with when she was speaking in an oratorial fashion.  She becomes more reckless as the days go by, and civil war results in needless bloodshed.  Repetitive speeches issue from John Knox who claims that Mary is a harlot and in service to the Pope.  Mary never mentions religion except once when she says there is room for both Protestants and Catholics in her realm.  But once she is accused, we don’t get to hear from her how she feels about these virulent attacks.

Elizabeth is clearly the more sound leader, but again, even though the movie has feminist leanings, and the women refer to each other at times as sisters, and vow to each other as faithful cousins, the scene we are waiting for at the end, when the two women finally get to meet face to face, is obscured literally by too much fancy set dressing and gauze curtains in front of them, and then sappy tears.   After all of that statesmanship, we are left with sentimental sorrow. 

I was hoping to learn more about the actual conflict.  I got a general sense of things.  Elizabeth relied on the wise counsel of William Cecil, played by Guy Pearce.  Robbie and Pearce have a great scene together, where they admit they are both men, exhilarated at the power they wield. 

The two actresses seize every chance they can to perform their queenly duties.  Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie are up to the task.  But the subject of the two queens vying for the kingdom has a high pedigree.  Many other movies and television series have been made before this.   I am afraid this particular movie does not quite rise to the occasion.  It left me wanting to know more, or at least to see Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson in the 1971 version.