Charting the years between 1561 and 1567 between Mary’s return to Scotland (she had lived in France for most of her life) and her imprisonment Mary Queen of Scots has a lot to cover. Returning from France already a widow of one marriage, Mary laid claim to both Scotland and England’s thrones as a Stewart. The fact that she was a Catholic made her even more of a threat in both countries.

The story that this film chooses to tell is one where it compares two women, both queens and their struggle to survive in a male dominated world. Mary (Saoirse Ronan) is a proud and brave woman who believes God has placed her as ruler. Her actions are often portrayed as impulsive and headstrong and are ultimately her downfall. Elizabeth (Margot Robbie) is equally proud and headstrong, but considers the idea of marriage a risk to her control as a man will always want to take her crown. She sacrifices those things that she is jealous Mary has in order to serve her country and maintain power. At the expense of historical accuracy the film has to engineer a meeting between the two, but it does not pay off as it should.

Overall I found it really difficult to emotionally connect with this film. Both Ronan and Robbie give powerful, strong performances. The photography is beautiful and the costumes and make up exquisite. But I found it hard to connect with the motives of the two queens and the fact that their relationship is purely via letter and envoys. It feels obvious that I should be aware of and accept that nearly 500 years ago royal lineage would feel that their God given position was enough for them to want to seek to rule and maintain that rule. But Mary’s motivations and behaviours left me cold. The film starts with her being led to her execution and everything that followed just seemed to show misstep after misstep to get to that point.

A well acted, fantastic looking misfire for me. But I feel like I missed something.