Tag: Scotland

Tell It To The Bees

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

In 1952, Jean Markham (Anna Paquin) returns to the small Scottish town where she grew up to take over her father’s medical practice as the local doctor. She left in her teenage years under scandalous circumstances which, we’ll learn later, involved falling in love with another girl in an age when such things were frowned upon. When young Charlie Weekes (Gregor Selkirk) turns up at her surgery with a minor injury, recognising he may be going through something of a hard time she takes him back to her house to show him the bee hives she keeps in her garden. She tells him you can share any secret with the bees and they’ll understand.

Charlie’s mum Lydia (Holliday Grainger) isn’t having an easy time of it either. Her husband Robbie (Emun Elliot) became a changed man during the war and their relationship is over. He has to all intents and purposes moved out of the family home. Lydia holds down a factory floor position at the mill where her less than sympathetic sister in law Pam (Kate Dickie) works, but is behind on the rent and eviction is not far off on the horizon. Lydia’s fury at the new doctor taking her son to his house is mitigated when she meets Jean and discovers the latter is a woman, not a man.

Once Lydia and Charlie are evicted, Jean gives them lodging. When Lydia is laid off, Jean gives her a job as housekeeper. On news of her eviction, Lydia – a keen dancer – heads to a local pub, hits the drink and is all over the first man to join her on the dance floor. Charlie spots her through the window and feels betrayed. If you’ve seen the trailer or publicity stills which accurately pitch the film as a lesbian romance you’ve got a pretty good idea where this is going – although the narrative has a few surprises in store towards the end.

Henrietta and Jessica Ashworth’s adaptation of Fiona Shaw’s novel proves effective for the most part, capturing the feel of a small town where everybody knows everybody else and no secrets stay hidden for long. In passing, it delivers believable portraits of bailiffs working for landlords and the harsh, shop floor working conditions of (mostly female) mill workers. Doctors working within the newly founded NHS find that patients can’t quite get used to the idea that medical treatment is free and consequently are slower in seeking advice or treatment than they might be today (at least, while we still have an NHS free to all at the point of need). Finally, in an unexpectedly harrowing subplot, a backstreet abortion goes wrong threatening to kill off a minor character.

Beyond the young Charlie, the few other male characters are deftly sketched if mostly on the fringes of the narrative. Lydia’s husband Robbie is a brute given to occasional bouts of violence, unable to relate to his wife yet still tragically in love with her. He contrasts sharply with Jean’s kindly solicitor friend Jim (Stephen Robertson) who proposes to her then remains genuinely interested in her well-being even after his advances have been rejected. Elsewhere the boy with whom Charlie plays in the woods talks to him about “a dirty dyke”, the only words on offer to describe Jean’s sexual preferences.

All the performances are top notch (why doesn’t Kate Dickie get more decent roles?). A mention should also go to the decision to shoot with real bees rather than special effects: the bee wrangling and cinematography yield spectacular results.

The one place the film trips up follows a scene in which the outraged Robbie plunges his fist through one of Jean’s hives. If you kept bees and discovered someone had done this, you’d most definitely have a reaction. But, inexplicably, Jean doesn’t ever appear to notice this has happened. (It may not be a script error – it’s possible this material was there and either not shot or cut out after shooting to bring down the running length.) It’s an irritating plot hole that knocks the film down at least a star on our rating. Which is a shame because, that sole misstep aside, the whole thing works as a serviceable, small town, post-war, lesbian, romantic drama. With a young boy’s perspective thrown in alongside those of the two women for good measure.

Tell It To The Bees is out in the UK on Friday, July 19th. On VoD on Monday, November 11th.

Mary Queen of Scots

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

This 16th century historical epic starts off promisingly enough in England with the imprisoned Queen Mary of Scotland (Saoirse Ronan) being taken out and beheaded. The rest of the film is a flashback covering events leading up to a rerun of this execution scene. Following the death of her 16-year-old royal husband the French Dauphin, 18 year old, Roman Catholic Mary comes to Scotland to rule as Queen surrounded by powerful male advisors, in which respect her position is not dissimilar to that of her Protestant counterpart Queen Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie) South of the border in England.

As Elizabeth is without heir to the English throne and showing no imminent sign of marrying, the English establishment fears Mary may remarry and produce a Catholic, Scottish heir to the Protestant, English throne. In the course of the narrative, Mary survives an ill-judged marriage to English nobleman Henry Stuart/Lord Darnley (Jack Lowden), the odd military uprising and various court intrigues before being captured and imprisoned by the English.

Unlike The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018), which wilfully and gleefully employed the merest bare bones of accepted historical fact as a springboard for compelling flights of fantasy and episodes of sexual intrigue, Mary Queen of Scots is much more po-faced even as it throws in, among other things, a gay affair between Darnley and a cross-dressing member of Mary’s court, an overwrought birthing scene with epic music to match and – moving towards the grimmer end of human behavioural excess – a marital rape scene. It also puts a couple of black actors into Mary’s and Elizabeth’s courts – the reign of Elizabeth I indeed saw Britain’s very first black community, yet there is no indication that they worked at court level.

In real life, the two Queens never actually met but the screenplay can’t resist having them do so – just like in Charles Jarrott’s rather more compelling 1971 version with Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth and Vanessa Redgrave as Mary. The relationship between the two women ruling the two neighbouring countries is however what drives the narrative, whether they actually meet or not. Mary is a creature of the heart, rejecting or accepting suitors for love (including pre-marital cunnilingus performed on her person by the persuasive Darnley) whereas Elizabeth advises admirer Robert Dudley (Joe Alwyn) as he tries to put his hand up her skirts that such things are not going to happen.

Elizabeth fights off the pox, which briefly threatens her life (and the succession) before coming to a realisation that, in a world of men, she needs to act like a man rather than a woman. To conceal the ravages of the disease after her recovery, the English queen regnant wears white face paint and sports a garish red wig, contrasting sharply with Mary’s unspoiled beauty – although of the two, it’s ultimately Elizabeth who survives. Mary gets far more screen time however.

The plethora of English and Scottish noblemen scarcely help make the convoluted plotting easy to follow while the script’s cramming of a considerable amount of material into its running length means that some promising elements race by without being given the necessary space to be explored, a cramping effect that also hampers the two lead actresses’ performances. That’s a pity, because the characters they play are truly fascinating historical figures who deserve better while the power play between them and the powerful men around each of them is rich material indeed which ought to be exploited much more effectively than it is here.

Mary, Queen of Scots is out in the UK on Friday, January 18th. On VoD on Monday, May 20th.

Outlaw King

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

Robert the Bruce is one of Scotland’s most significant historical figures. Following in the footsteps of William Wallace in the late 13th Century, who inspired Braveheart (Mel Gibson, 1995), Robert the Bruce led a revolt against the English in the early 14th Century to become the King of Scotland.

Scots director Mackenzie previously worked with leading man Chris Pine on the impressive Texas bank robber drama Hell Or High Water (2016). Pine is however much less convincing playing a 14th Century Scot than he was a present day Texan, which is unfortunate since Outlaw/King is constructed around Pine as Robert The Bruce.

Numerous minor roles furnish much better performances – among them the down to Earth Stephen Dillane as the ageing King Edward I of England and the adrenaline-fuelled Billy Howle as his son with something to prove Edward, Prince Of Wales. Last but not least, Florence Pugh steals the scene as Elizabeth, the daughter of a nobleman married off to Robert in an attempt to cement peace between England and Scotland immediately after Edward I’s defeat of Wallace.

One could easily construct a film around Elizabeth. The subplot here goes from arranged marriage with a disinterested husband, her immediate rapport with his young daughter Marjorie (Josie O’Brien), his slow thawing as he comes to realise she has his best interests at heart, her flight to a safe castle, her capture by the enemy and her being literally hung out to dry outside a castle wall in a metal cage.

Elsewhere, the piece lurches between fragments of ineffectual character study, multiple protagonist historical drama where you’re constantly struggling to keep up with who’s who, gratuitous drone shots flying over highlands landscape and big medieval warfare action set pieces complete with enough blood and occasional gore to make the whole thing a BBFC 18.

The famous story about Robert the Bruce drawing inspiration – from watching a spider make several attempts to complete a web before finally succeeding – for fighting another battle following previous defeats is briefly referenced as a blink and you’ll miss it, dew-covered web in an opening shot on the morning of the decisive battle. Scottish audiences ought to be thrilled at the prospect of this movie, although sadly it lacks the focus needed to achieve the epic status its subject deserves.

Outlaw King is out in the UK on Friday, November 9th in cinemas as well as on Netflix. Watch the film trailer below: