The Young Victoria Review
Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
Genre: Drama
Movie Type: Docudrama, Romantic Drama
Themes: Rise To Power, Crowned Heads
Main Cast: Emily Blunt, Rupert Friend, Paul Bettany, Jim Broadbent, Miranda Richardson
Release Year: 2009
Country: US
Run Time: 100 minutes
Emily Blunt stars as Queen Victoria in this British costume drama focusing on the early years of the monarch's reign and her romance with Prince Albert
The elderly Queen Victoria has graced the screen many times, but this period drama takes a different approach. Here Victoria is a teenager, her natural spirit only slightly tempered by the weight of her impending duties as queen. We meet her as her kindly uncle King William (Jim Broadbent) is ailing, thus ushering in a new era for the inexperienced royal. While her parents (Mark Strong and Miranda Richardson) feel Victoria is too young to take the crown, they are keen to maintain a close hold on her and benefit from her position when the time comes.
With such self-serving parents, Victoria is lonely - and easy prey for charming men seeking to win her favour. One such man is Prime Minister Lord Melbourne (Paul Bettany), who flatters and advises Victoria in a way that delights her, but worries others, particularly subtle suitor Albert (Rupert Friend).
The growing rivalry between the two men maintains tension, with the audience firmly directed towards Albert's camp while Victoria dithers between the pair. The fact that we know the ending doesn't detract from the sweet romance between the young queen and her German suitor. Friend puts in a sturdy but unshowy turn as the increasingly devoted Albert, while Bettany is on fine supercilious form without being over the top: it's quite possible to see why Victoria finds him appealing. Emily Blunt brings a likeable everygirl quality to the central role, although her manner is anachronistically modern at times. Unlike, say, Keira Knightley, she doesn't seem born to appear in period dramas.
