the audience applauded

recommended

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Emily Blunt is Victoria who, when her uncle dies, succeeds to the throne. Everyone figures her to be a passive leader. After all, she's just a kid, has no experience, and is a woman to boot.Various august personages are vying for influence over her. Now, if this were an ill-considered movie, we'd have a robust feminist figure dressing down the Old Boy network and taking charge in no uncertain way.But this is a a more savvy story than that. She's no will o' the wisp when it comes to decision making and even temper. She can throw a childish fit. But she needs a man, just as men of that stature need a wife, and she finds him in one of her less aggressive suitors, Prince Albert of Saxony, Coberg, and Ruritania. And, no, we don't get to see Prince Albert go to the can.It's different from what you'd expect and its informative. (I, for one, never knew that Albert was shot in an assassination attempt.) Ordinarily, This kind of biopic takes us through to the inevitable end. As Ernest Hemingway once observed, every love story is a tragedy because at the end one of the lovers dies.NOT HERE. We don't even follow Victoria and Albert into old age, just the first couple of years of their marriage. The last shot is of the two of them in bed, the smiling queen gently hugging the heroic Prince Consort or whatever he was. Their futures and their ends are given in a printed epilogue.I liked it. Okay, so it ends happily instead of tragically, but these days, who needs more tragedy in his life? The location film is superlative. It will make you rufous with envy. It will coagulate your eyeballs. The ladies costumes are suitably muted but the men in uniform wear outrageous colors. Out of uniform they wear black suits with stylishly skinny shoulders. Most of the interiors have so many paintings they resemble the Louvre except for the dining rooms. They're all framed, tinged, and imbued with gilt and appointed with Louis XIV furniture and resemble Donald Trump's suite at Trump Towers.Emily Blunt is a professional and convincing actress -- and in fact all the performances are at least adequate. She's also quietly pretty. It's not high drama, to be sure, but, again, I don't think I could take much more high drama without stroking out. It's a velvety narrative of romance and the exercise of power. You'll probably not be bored.

a real useful film. for its delicate beauty. for the different side of a legendary queen. for the recreation of atmosphere. for costumes. for the cast. and, more important, for the flavor who has different nuances by many other historical films because it gives the emotion who seems similar to the feelings when you admire old family pictures. its grace is the basic virtue . and the science of director to explore the parts of a kind of labyrinth of events, choices, gestures and decisions preserving the air of fairy tale who defines each love story. because it is a love story but "in nuce". the young queen is the axis of the venerable grandmother of Europe.

One of the pitfalls that a lot of biopics fall into is that they try to do too much, e.g., telling someone's entire life story as opposed to a part of it. Thankfully, THE YOUNG VICTORIA avoids this mistake by choosing to focus on the early years of Queen Victoria's reign. The source of dramatic conflict is how, as a young monarch, she was pulled this way and that by advisors and politicians who were all vying for control and influence. Meanwhile, she finds a friend (and eventually, lover) in Prince Albert. One thing the film does really well is show the difficulty inherent in being a leader, especially when one is young and viewed as inexperienced. Emily Blunt pulls off the role admirably and shows the chops she would bring to later performances such as EDGE OF TOMORROW, although her character here is a little more vulnerable. I thought she showed both sides quite well. Rupert Friend also did a great job as Prince Albert, who provided much needed solace and counterpoint to Victoria. Mark Strong also did well as the slimy John Conroy, who pressured Victoria to establish a regency with her mother, the Duchess of Kent. Also worth noting is the excellent production design and costumes which faithfully (I assume) and beautifully reproduce Victorian England. There is also an incredible score and soundtrack with (mostly) period classical music. Put together, this creates a rather handsome period costume drama and romance that should appeal to a large swath of the movie-going public.

Don't get me wrong, Emily Blunt seems perfect as the young Queen, her diction exemplary, her poise Regal. As are all the leading players are (not diction, or poise!) very good in their roles from our favourite big and small screen stars - Miranda Richardson, Paul Bettany, Mark Strong, Rupert Friend, Jim Broadbent etc.There are lots of reviews up here and so I won't want to repeat too much of they say, but somehow, the very high standards of production, often very glossy (and Oscar winner for Costume Design), plus the lush and swelling stereo (surround) sound, take away the tactility of both the subjects and the film itself. Not that I'm necessarily wanting to get back to the VHS quality of 1980s 'costume drama', mind you!Maybe it's because many of the characters are portrayed as hard-nosed and bitchy, out of date and greedy. This does highlight the romantic side of the film, though, between Victoria and Albert, as they get to know each other, but this takes a good while to reach and isn't as clammily awful as it could have been. Endearing almost, which is a bit distant from the often perceived hardness of the monarch in her more documented reign of later life.It's entertaining enough with some gorgeous photography of some lovely stately homes and is perfect fodder for a dark early winter's evening. There's no sex or violence, though adults will be in no doubt when those bits take place, hence the PG certificate.As a history lesson, it's OK, it's never rammed down our throats and if we choose, we can just let it run and simply enjoy the surface sheen. The acting never really is raised beyond what is needed - Jim Broadbent as King William IV shouting very loudly at a huge banquet might be considered as full-bodied acting but it's not necessarily good. The two main players do have their moments but Julian Fellowes' (writer also of Downton Abbey) screenplay is necessarily rather clipped and to the point - I don't think small-talk was the done thing in Victoria's household!So, good solid entertainment that's good to look at and which should please the Period Drama brigade as well as reaching a wider - and younger, audience. The Sinead O'Connor end titles song is a beautiful and fitting climax that firmly tells us that this film was intended to be a popularist one, which, I think is a good thing.