It is common enough for significant royal figures to be immortalized in film, but rarely are their lives given the telling that they deserve. Proving that English biopics have more to offer than fancy costumes, The Young Victoria discovers the woman beneath the surface of the much-celebrated monarch Queen Victoria. Spirited and passionate Emily Blunt ignites the screen with her rendition of a youthful Victoria. Her first and subsequently lifelong love affair with Prince Albert (Rupert Friend) lifts the film above its otherwise mundane political plot-line and brings its significant royal subject to life.
Caught between the will of the ruling monarch and a couple of power hungry social climbers, the young Queen-to be craves the freedom of making her own decisions. The film opens with Victoria playing a lonely game of hopscotch in her Kensington Palace home. She lives under the watchful eye of her mother, the Duchess of Kent (Miranda Richardson), and scheming counselor Sir John Conroy (Mark Strong) who are determined to have Victoria appoint her mother as regent, should she succeed to the throne before her eighteenth birthday.
Time quickly passes until we have a seventeen-year-old Victoria who is dreaming of the day that she can escape her prison. The careful precautions that her mother takes in ensuring her daughter’s safety build on the antagonism that the audience already feels against the duchess for her intended use of Victoria. At her mother’s insistence, Victoria must always hold somebody’s hand as she climbs or descends the stairs. With a great sense of victory, Victoria’s first ascension of the staircase alone is cleverly entwined with her defiant act to take accept the role of Queen after the death of her Uncle, King William IV played by a witty and intimidating Jim Broadbent.
Director Jean-Marc Vallee makes a gallant effort in his attempt to keep the film from becoming a cliché period drama. The lingering shots of the picturesque locations are not without purpose. The grand places that Victoria and Albert grew up in are lonely and empty with only the expectations upon them filling the void in their lives. In contrast, Buckingham Palace is filled with advisers and people with opinions. Despite the emptiness being filled physically with people, the void does not disappear until Victoria makes the choice to bring Albert into her life as her husband.
Victoria and Albert’s love story saves The Young Victoria from becoming swallowed up in politics. Julian Fellowe’s spends too much time in his script with political exposition. The literal name-dropping of the royal family and political figures at royal functions is at times overbearing and condescending. After one sidelong mention of Lord Melbourne being the Prime Minister, it becomes almost laughable at the amount of times his name is slipped into conversation. Nevertheless, Fellowe’s does a remarkable job in bringing the famous love affair between Victoria and Albert to life.
Through their forced separation, as the politics and internal family battles of Victoria’s life are taking place, Albert and Victoria’s letters become the anticipated focus of the film. As their relationship grows, the expectation for Victoria to become Queen almost seems to lack importance, as Albert becomes the sole source of happiness in her closeted life. Friend does a wonderful job in toeing the line between lover and friend without overstepping it by becoming the social climber intent on a marriage with the future Queen of England.
It is not the marriage of Victoria and Albert that culminates The Young Victoria’s journey through her early life, but rather the worthiness of her first choice as Queen – her husband Albert. Despite it being factually incorrect, Prince Albert’s selfless act to protect his wife in the face of danger brings a satisfactory conclusion to a historically famous love story.
7 out of 10
The Young Victoria hits cinemas December 18th.