Mary Queen Of Scots

Mary Stuart (Saoirse Ronan) became Queen of Scotland when just six days old following the death of her father James V Of Scotland. While Scotland was ruled by Regents until she became an adult, she was effectively married off at the age of five to the future King of France, who was himself only four. She subsequently moved to France for thirteen years. The last two as Queen in France to the then King Francis II, who then died on her.

So in 1561, at the age of eighteen, Mary moved back to Scotland to claim the throne in her own country. She was also next in line to the throne in England, unless her cousin Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie) produces or names an heir.

Her reappearance creates alarm on both sides of the border. As a devout Catholic, she was regarded with suspicion by her mainly Protestant subjects. Not even her half-brother James Murray (James McArdle), who is the stand-in monarch, trusts her. While Protestant cleric John Knox (David Tennant) can't even abide a woman being in charge.

Then there’s Elizabeth, ravaged by the pox, who is completely unhappy at having a younger, much better looking queen eyeing up her throne. Yet Elizabeth sees no other viable option and the two come to an agreement of sorts in a dramatic meeting between the two that apparently in real life never happened. Unfortunately hardly anyone else likes this idea and the plots against her mount.

Mary seems naive, she chooses her allies and her husbands badly. Her second husband, Lord Darnley (Jack Lowden) is a severe disappointment, who ends up murdered but with whom she had a son. Her third, the Earl of Bothwell (Martin Compston), is a ‘nice’ chap who is not only the suspected murderer but who abducts her and also rapes her as a sort of marriage proposal.

None of this goes down well with people and she is forced to abdicate the throne to her one year old son and go into hiding. This ends with her imprisoned for eighteen years before finally being beheaded on the orders of her cousin. 

In The Favourite, we saw two women vying for the affections of Queen Anne while here, we see two women vying against the men and for the throne of England. It’s interesting and complex stuff but in the end probably not that great a film.

Stan & Ollie

The film opens in 1937 but only to remind us, not that we really needed telling, that back in the day Laurel and Hardy were one of the biggest (if not the biggest) comedy stars in the world and absolutely everybody loved them.

All is not perfect though. Stan Laurel (Steve Coogan), the more savvy of the two, is not happy that they are paid less than other comedy stars such as Charlie Chaplin. He wants to break with their agent Hal Roach (Danny Huston) but the fact he and Oliver Hardy (John C Reilly) have separate contracts which expire at different times make this difficult as does Ollie’s reluctance to rock the boat. In the end they briefly go their separate ways. Ollie gets a new partner and even makes a movie without Stan.

Fast forward sixteen years to 1953 and the pair have been back together for some time but their time in the limelight has been and gone. As almost a last throw of the dice they come to Britain to do a tour and to try to revive their careers. If it all goes well they hope to be able to make another movie.

The film covers this tour as they play to half empty halls and stay in some seriously seedy accommodation. Their promoter Bernie Delfont (Rufus Jones) is no help, he has his mind now firmly on newcomers such as Norman Wisdom and Abbott and Costello.

To boost ticket sales they are asked to perform embarrassing publicity stunts such as judging a beauty contest etc. Meanwhile Stan has the fruitless task getting hold of the producer who is supposedly financing their new film but the film isn’t going to happen because as the tour has shown, sadly they are no longer the draw they once were.

Towards the end of the tour they are joined by their wives, Lucille Hardy (Shirley Henderson) and Ida Kitaeva Hardy (Nina Arianda). Who are a double-act in their own right.

The two are by now at their lowest ebb and when Ollie is taken ill he decides to pack it all in. Stan is then paired up with a new partner to complete the tour but he knows it’s not the same. The pair of them may have had their rocky moments but really they both know can’t perform without each other. Soon Ollie climbs off his sick bed against doctor’s order, and his wife’s, to complete the tour.

It’s a lovely film, a nice homage to Laurel and Hardy but a sad one too. Not at all what I was expecting and all the better for that. Both Reilly and Coogan play their parts brilliantly and capture the various mannerisms of the two characters. Highly recommended.

The Favourite

The Favourite is about Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) who rules Britain from 1702 to 1714. The film portrays her as bit of a sad person plagued by ill health, a recluse and a part-time lesbian. She’s possibly sad because of her 17 failed pregnancies for which she has to show only 17 rabbits representing each one that ended in either miscarriage, stillbirth or a very short life. This I suppose might be enough to make you seek solace in your own sex. 

Or possibly sad because of the political turmoil she has to precede over, not that she takes much interest in ruling the country and leaves most of the bickering\blackmailing\murdering etc to her Prime Minister Sidney Godolphin (James Smith) and the opposition leader Robert Harley (Nicholas Hoult).

She does opt to raise taxes to pay for the war with France on the advice of her ‘lady in waiting’ Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz), Duchess of Marlborough, the wife of the general who commands the army. Mostly because Sarah is not only in possession of the royal ear but also the royal bed.

However Sarah’s sexual obligations to Anne are curtailed when Sarah’s cousin, Abigail Hill (Emma Stone), arrives on the scene as a chambermaid intent on shagging her way up the social ladder. Abigail was once an aristocrat herself until her father allegedly gambled her (and lost) in a poker game. I hasten to add there is no historical record to support this nor for that matter Anne’s rabbits. Although with the whole film supposedly being a riotous comedy sticking to the facts is probably not strictly necessary.

It doesn’t take Abigail long at all to oust Sarah from her role in delivering special services to the Queen while at the same time, conveniently for him, Harley is trying to get Abigail to persuade the Queen to stop financing the war. He strikes a deal with Abigail by offering her marriage, which will restore her status, to his friend Masham (Joe Alwyn) who Harley refers to as ‘c*** struck’ with Abigail.

Abigail though is not so struck with Masham and she consummates their marriage by nonchalantly jerking off her new husband with a look of disgust on her face before wiping her hand on the bedclothes.

Quite where Anne’s husband, Prince George of Denmark, is throughout all this we’re not sure.

All in all it’s an excellent period romp and all great fun, although obviously not good clean fun. The film boasts three excellent female leads which may stop people pointing out there are not enough female lead roles but probably not. In what is looking to be a very thin year for films it will no doubt pick up an award or three as well as educating everyone with new and varied uses of the ‘c’ word.

Bohemian Rhapsody

Bohemian Rhapsody starts off at Live Aid in 1985 and then backtracks all the way to 1970 to give us a potted history of Queen that begins with Farrokh Bulsara, as he was then, forcing his way into a band called Smile. The next thing you know, he’s Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek) and they're Queen, and they're touring the world. It seems Queen’s road to fame was pretty much as straight forward as it gets.

What then follows is a hugely enjoyable romp through the history of Queen accompanied by their multitude of hit records. Naturally a lot of the film focusses on their lead singer. Cue the main criticism of the film which has been that it offers a very sanitised and uncontroversial view of Mercury.

This is mostly apparent when it comes to his personal life where a lot of the film is devoted to his relationship with Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton). They became lovers and even got engaged, although it is apparently clearer to her than it was to him that Mercury was gay. Sadly, the film opts not to explore what this meant in the homophobic 1970s and therefore why he hid this for so long.

There are also many historical inaccuracies, presumably in a desire to add dramatic effect but real happenings that would have added dramatic effect are ignored. Prior to Live Aid Queen hadn’t split up as the film implies. The band had taken a break in 1983 to focus on all their solo careers but had long since got back together, had released the mega selling ‘The Works’ album and were in the process of completing a world tour to promote it when Live Aid happened.

Mercury would also have been hard pushed to reveal his HIV diagnosis to the band pre-Live Aid as he didn’t know this himself until two years later and hid this from his band members until 1989.

However it isn't a bad film, far from it. Rami Malek is excellent as Mercury and the other members of Queen are equally believable. Bohemian Rhapsody is great entertainment but ultimately not terribly fulfilling. A bit like Queen themselves perhaps.

While the film ends at Live Aid, Freddie Mercury would live on for another six years and would embrace his diagnosis with the likes of ‘Who Wants To Live Forever?’ and ‘The Show Must Go On’ but the film doesn't dare go there. Meanwhile Queen as a band live on to this day. There must be enough material for another two or three films there.

Blindspotting

Blindspotting is another film about racial bias but one with a different angle. The screenplay is written by its two lead actors and is set on the streets of Oakland, USA. It is here where Collin (Daveed Diggs) is working as a white van man alongside his childhood friend, Miles (Rafael Casal).

Collin is a former prisoner running down the clock on his last three days of probation and is therefore desperately trying to away from any trouble. Then, with his parole completed, he can move out of the halfway house he's living in and move on with his life.

The problem is that staying away from trouble isn't easy when your best friend is someone who seems to be seeking it out. Collin is a black man and Miles is a white man, but Miles is the one who acts and talks like a black gang member, something that Collin now finds very clichéd.

The social landscape of Oakland is changing fast and the once dominant black culture is being pushed aside by the incoming hipsters and their kale smoothies. Collin embraces this but Miles seems wrong footed by it all.

One night, just before his 11pm curfew, Collin sees a white policeman (Ethan Embry) shoot an unarmed fleeing black suspect in the back. He is faced with the dilemma of whether to report the incident or not. If he does, he’s admitting he was beyond his curfew which could potentially put him back behind bars. So he doesn't and goes off to get his hair done instead. 

They both work as white van men for a removals company where Val (Janina Gavankar) is their boss. She used to be Collin's girlfriend until the things that happened that sent Collin to prison happened. It is some way into the film until it is revealed what actually happened and why Collin is so keen to move on.

Then, while on a removals job, he comes face for face with the policeman.

Excellent film. Well worth a look.

On Chesil Beach

Ian McEwan is my favourite author that I've never read but I do like the films based on his work, so his 'On Chesil Beach' intrigued me.

It is the story of Florence (Saoirse Ronan) and Edward (Billy Howle), two young university graduates from different cultures. She is a talented and ambitious violinist from a wealthy parents (Emily Watson and Samuel West) while he is the son of a schoolteacher (Adrian Scarborough) and an artist (Anne-Marie Duff). His mother is brain damaged following an horrendous incident with train door.

They meet when Edward, a little drunk after celebrating his exam results, gate crashes a CND meeting because he feels he badly need to share his success with someone, anyone. In Florence he feels he's hit pure gold and wants to share more than just his exam results with her.

Like other McEwan adaptations all this back story is revealed in flashbacks from where they are now which is their bedroom in a quaint seaside hotel on Chesil Beach in Dorset on honeymoon.

Edward is eagerly anticipating the big moment of consummating their marriage while Florence is absolutely dreading it. I think she’s too posh for that sort of stuff and despite the fact he’s positively gagging for it, he bottles it. This creates an uncomfortable situation and even the waiters who serve them dinner laugh at them. This is the 1960s but nothing is swinging here. Nothing is zipping either. Why did they never sort that zip out?

It is excruciating for them but especially for us and a bit of a surprise really considering how natural, normal and intimate the scenes of their courtship were. Then the thing that understandably finally kills off their attempts at sex is Edward’s premature ejaculation. Clearly this wasn’t covered in the sex manual Florence had been terrifying herself with but how he got himself that worked up when so little progress seemed to have been made on the seduction front I’m not sure. The film is so overwhelmed by its momentum impeding flashbacks that its enough to put anyone off their stroke.

Florence legs it on to the beach where they argue and eventually she offers a compromise deal, herself as a dutiful but sexless wife. He’s not buying that, he thought he'd signed up for the whole package, and I don’t blame him. So apparently that’s it. One crap shag and its all over. That’s a worry and if true how did anyone ever get born?

Given that the book is only a short novella, the film feels padded out and McEwan has indeed added some extra scenes. These include quite an eye-opening one thirteen years later, set in a record shop run by Edward. A child, Chloe, appears in his shop and she is clearly Florence’s daughter. She is aged about twelve.

So whatever Florence’s hang ups were she got over them pretty quickly didn't she and with a member of her string quartet, Charles. Whereas in the book she remained single and filled with regret, here that is clearly not the case. Perhaps her failure to consummate her marriage was actually down to unresolved feelings for another man?

In all a disappointing film, that never really exploded into life even when you think it ought to. Sorry Ian, I don't buy it.

Funny Cow

Funny Cow is about a stand-up comedienne (Maxine Peake) taking on the men at their own game in the dingy working men’s clubs of the 1970s. It is in one such place in the north of England where she sees the depressive Lenny (Alun Armstrong) up on stage, going through the motions with his dire material, and effectively dying, that inspires her in the first place. 

When she talks to him about his act, he assures her that ‘women aren’t funny’, and suggests she tries singing or stripping instead but it is comedy that she wants to do. Comedy is a release for her from her miserable life. 

From a childhood living with an abusive father (Stephen Graham) through to a dysfunctional marriage to the violent and controlling Bob (Tony Pitts) via a mother (Lindsey Coulson) driven to drink by life.

Finally leaving her husband and taking up with bookshop owner Angus (Paddy Considine), who takes her to see foreign films which fall way outside her comfort zone, turns out to be not that much of a trade up.

Meanwhile she struggles to gain a foothold in the world of the gungy pub carpet. She suffers from terrible nerves when she attends an audition where she is up against a singer (Richard Hawley), a ventriloquist (Vic Reeves) and an Elvis impersonator (John Bishop) with his dog (Bilko).

Eventually she blags her way on to stage when the promoter has little choice when faced with an empty stage. There she finally gains acceptance, and later success, but only by winning round the hostile audience by embracing the 1970's reality of doing racist and homophobic gags, while dealing with the inevitable hecklers.

In the film we see her after her success, then before, then after again in series of Dave Allen like scenes in front of the camera. Scenes that for me distract from the narrative of the film and therefore drag down what was a generally strong film. 

The later scenes seem to show her just as cynical and disillusioned with everything as she was before she became a comedienne. Even being a success doesn’t appear to have brought her any happiness but then she probably never expected it to.