Currently there are two new movies dealing with tragic queens playing in the cinema - for some reason it looks as "The Favourite" gets much more attention and praise than "Mary Queen of Scots" and this maybe has to do with the fact that story about Scottish queen has been re-told countless times in the books and on the screen, while 18th century queen Anne is largely forgotten and obscure historical character, remembered only as being completely wrong person for that position. However, like so many people in the power, she seems to have had soft spot for her favourites and this where scriptwriters had a field day by heavily inventing juicy story for modern cinema audiences. This is very much "All about Eve" kind of movie, with lots of cattiness, backstabbing and intrigues but done in a way that Joseph L. Mankiewicz could never get away with back in 1950 - for one thing, there is quite a lot reference to sex one way or the other, where old Hollywood behaved like these things don't exist and lighting two cigarettes with one match was as far as they would dare to go.
What we know about Queen Anne is that she was bloated and unattractive woman surrounded by intriguing court and had two powerful ladies fighting for her protection and influence - out of this interesting little forgotten gossip, scriptwriters created powerful drama where three women stand right in the centre of the movie, while men are bewigged and powdered creatures in the background (turning old rules upside down). The whole court tiptoes around obviously unhinged Queen who is either too sick with gout or too drunk or too indisposed to focus on government so basically everything is left to forceful duchess Sarah Churchill who behaves like some royal Mrs. Danvers, bossing everybody around, giving orders, bestowing favours and enjoying her life very much. We don't hear anything about queen's husband (she is widowed by than) and duke himself is at the front line in a war so women enjoy glorious freedom, dances, shootings and whatnot - this nice arrangement suddenly gets shaken with arrival of certain Abigail Hill who in real life was impoverished cousin of the duchess and somehow she wiggles her way into royal favour. What probably happened is that at some point queen had enough of the duchess who became too self confident for her own good and was known to disrespect absolutely everybody, so ultimately queen kicked her out of the court and replaced with softer and nicer cousin Abigail (who knew her place) - what scriptwriters created out of this is a lesbian bitch fest full of intrigues and jealousy.
It works surprisingly well on the screen - mainly because acting is so spectacular. Costumes, camera and all the technical details are fine (though I found a bit bizarre how director updated the court dance into something completely weird but fun - not sure is this just creative freedom or pandering to modern audiences) but the movie basically stands on the shoulders of Olivia Colman who deserves all the awards and praises thrown at her, because she actually stands in the centre of the royal whirlwind and everybody fights for her attention. What Colman does is quite an achievement because at first she appears as a loony, a lose cannon with too much power on her hands - she is unattractive, overweight, spoiled and obviously too pampered, not unlike fictional Queen of Hearts from "Alice in Wonderland" - than, slowly, trough the movie we get to have a closer look at her and to actually feel sympathy for her - I won't go into too much details here right now because I don't want to spoil the surprises but eventually queen herself emerges human while her two court ladies are shameless power-hungry she-wolves who would tear her apart if they only could. The intriguing ladies Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone are fine, though I can easily imagine anybody in their roles - only Colman could play this role. Excellent and quite subversive movie.
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