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This weeks trip to the cinema saw us seeing Young Victoria.
This story about Victoria before she became queen and her early years on the throne, her meeting Prince Albert and the politics that surrounded her, is one that is not well known. The story, which is apparently pretty accurate, shows us a very different picture from the one which most of us tend to conjure up at the sound of her name, that of a small elderly lady dressed in black and not amused. It also shows a very different kind of monarchy, to that which we have today.
The film itself is enjoyable and well done and in some ways is less about Victoria and more about the politics of the day. Her early life will be a real eye opener to those who don’t already know of it and is, in my opinion, probably one of the factors which made her the formidable person that history tends to portray her as. The story of her and Prince Albert was somewhat lacking, but this might have been due to the fact they didn’t want to make up things to fill the gaps, or presume other things for which there was no evidence. But then on the other hand they seem to be happy enough to tinkle with the scandal that surrounded her and Lord Melbourne. Paul Bettany who portrayed him hardly look a day over his 38 years, while Lord Melbourne had been 60 in what was to become known as ‘The Crisis of the Bedchamber’.
The costumes are wonderful, like me you might spend much of the film trying to decide what is really Royal Palaces, what is sets and what is cgi and the outstanding acting comes from Jim Broadbent as King William, Rupert Friend as Prince Albert, and Harriet Walter as Queen Adelade. Certainly worth seeing but I doubt it will be any the worse for waiting for it to be released on DVD.
