Movie Review: The Young Victoria
Jul 8th, 2010 by admin
Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
Genre: History/Romance/Drama/Biography
Year: 2009
For whatever reason, after seeing this film it was clear to me that the story lacked substance, or rather…build up. It was an interesting story that overall still seemed bland and lacked any form of climax, and yet, I still felt the desire to watch it all the way through the end, which does speak to what this film does right.
Dealing with Queen Victoria’s difficult early years as she becomes the leader of her country, this movie takes us from her childhood all the way to when she becomes an established sovereign, influenced largely by the people around him — many of which have their own political agendas — and others of noble lineage that were led more blindly by their genuine love, namely Prince Albert.
As far as historical accuracies, I am entirely at a loss. I will not pretend to know much about the period and that was in fact one of the most frustrating aspects of this film. The fact that they run at breakneck speed through a number of accounts without fully establishing, making the assumption that the audience is somewhat familiar with the subject is a mistake, particularly for ignorant viewers like myself that hold no knowledge on the subject. Through most of the beginning of the film I struggled to keep up with events and names that were briefly mentioned and then moved on from before I had a chance to truly digest it.
As a romance film, however, there is no denying that the undercurrent of romanticism is strong and it does has its own peculiar charm. The story of true love in an arena of corruption does hold its own sense of triumph and perhaps that is the driving force that compelled me to finish watching this film. There is no denying that Emily Blunt, who plays the young Victoria and Rupert Friend, who plays Prince Albert, are good at what they do. Toss into the mix Paul Bethany who is genial and you have yourself a strong cast to carry this story all the way to its conclusion, so that even if the story is lacking in complexity, it is still quite a good watch.
Rating: 
Comment: A pretty tame movie when it comes to content. There is brief sexuality that is mostly implied, so with some parental guidance this is essentially a family film, though I almost guarantee that your kids are going to be bored to death by it.