The Young Victoria

Posted on: 11th March 2009  |

Director: Jean-Marc Vall?e
Starring: Emily Blunt, Rupert Friend, Miranda Richardson,Jim Broadbent, Mark Strong, Paul Bettany, Princess Beatrice
UK Release date: 6 March 2009
Certificate: PG (100 mins)

Despite director Jean-Marc Vallée’s pedigree – low budget exploration of adolescent sexuality – and French Canadian heritage, his The Young Victoria fits nicely into the vogue for costume-heavy historical drama. Rather like a further instalment of the Elizabeth movies, The Young Victoria captures a young, feisty queen at a critical moment in her life, and can never decide whether it is charming romance or hard-hitting political drama.

The two strands in the film are Victoria’s burgeoning love for Albert and the constitutional crisis that she caused on her coronation, mainly due to her inexperience. Emily Blunt is a beautiful, sensuous Victoria, banishing the image of her cultivated so carefully in later life as a taciturn widow, and her youthful innocence does explain how she is so easily seduced by her prime minister.

Whenever the scene shifts to outside the palace, Vallée rolls out the clichés that dog historical dramas: clean cockney barrow-boys, a working class in top hats even as they storm the palace, newspaper headlines announcing key plot points. Fortunately, the tentative affair with Albert is handled more sensitively, with Rupert Friend capturing both the German prince’s romanticism and determination. His social awkwardness, generated by years as his uncle’s political pawn, is gradually replaced by a mature intelligence.

What comes across throughout the film – apart from the loving attention to period detail of clothing – is the tension between Victoria’s headstrong youth and her status as monarch. If this is ineffective in the ‘public’ scenes, her naivety is expressed eloquently in short scenes with courtiers and politicians. If Miranda Richardson’s turn as Victoria’s mother is melodramatic, Emily Blunt has a lightness that somehow reveals her vulnerability and ineptitude without removing sympathy. The attempts to make the film either gritty or serious are often blunt and unsubtle, yet in the casual conversations and family dramas, The Young Victoria captures the undercurrents of parliamentary tension.

Vallée’s obvious strengths are in more domestic conflicts: his expression of Victoria’s repressed upbringing is striking. By humanising the queen, he upsets received knowledge about this austere monarch, bringing to life an almost ignored period of Victoria’s reign and establishing a vibrant image to contrast with the overweight, black-clad stereotype.

The Young Victoria does slip easily into the bodice-ripping genre, relying far too heavily on a nostalgic romanticism and pretty frocks. It fails to convince as a serious grapple with British history, and the burdens of the state are reduced to a distraction from the far more engaging love affair. Yet it is lovingly crafted, elegant and witty, supported by a concise script from Julian Fellowes, author of Gosford Park. Ultimately, this is disposal romance disguised as historical drama, but it retains a vibrant charm that overcomes even the lack of political nuance.



Gareth Vile



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