In 1997, Judi Dench played Queen Victoria, Britain’s longest reigning monarch in history, during her later years, the story revolving around her relationship with manservant John Brown.  Now, The Young Victoria features Emily Blunt as the queen during the first years of her reign, including her relationship with husband Prince Albert.

The movie focuses on the short, but crucial first few years of Victoria’s sixty-three year reign.  Refusing to sign a Regency notice that would give her mother power until she was of proper age, Victoria ascended to the throne at eighteen.  During these early years, her close advisor was the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, but Melbourne and his party were falling out of favor in Parliament and his attempts to keep some kind of power by imposing the wives of his party members onto the Royal Household was viewed negatively by the public.

Her connection to Melbourne caused Victoria to be strongly disliked by the public upon her early reign, but much of this dislike seemed to be forgotten when Victoria married Prince Albert.  The movie focuses much of its story on their courtship which seemed to be arranged by Victoria’s uncle, King Leopold of Belgium.  Victoria was wary of marriage at first, fearing that a husband would want to rule her, but Albert’s charms and his proclamation that she should marry someone who would want to rule with her finally won her over.

Some attention is devoted to the first few years of marriage while Victoria learns to trust her husband’s judgment and assistance… and then, just when the movie is really starting to get interesting, it ends.

I was really surprised with how suddenly this movie ended.  At about 100 minutes, it is somewhat short in runtime, especially for a costume drama, but watching the film it felt even shorter than that.  Perhaps it is because many of the film’s plot points which exist outside of the romance between Victoria and Albert seem to be slightly glossed over, and it never feels that much resolution is brought to them.

It is a credit to this movie, however, that when it ended I found myself wishing for more, rather than feeling a sense of relief that it was over.  The design of the film is everything you would expect from a solid costume drama, and the movie moves along at a fairly interesting pace.  Some of the post-production work does leave a lot to be desired as there are some oddly placed freeze frames and some really ugly cuts; but it’s possible these were presentation issues and not issues with the film itself.  Also, as I saw this film an entire month before it was officially released, it is likely any errors were fixed before then.

What really makes this movie work, though, is the performance by Emily Blunt, who finally gets a starring role after some notable supporting work.  Blunt is terrific as the young Victoria.  With the title of Queen, it’s easy to forget sometimes that Victoria was also a teenaged girl, and Blunt does an excellent job of balancing the exuberance of the Victoria’s youth with the seriousness of her station.  It’s part of her exuberance which makes the romance with Rupert Friend’s Prince Albert all the more interesting.  It is the connection between the two royal teenagers that really made this film work for me, more so than any of the political mumbo-jumbo.  Now, if only there could have been more of it.

The Young Victoria is rated PG for “some mild sexuality, a scene of violence, and brief incidental language and smoking.”  The PG rating is definitely adequate as there is little in this film to offend anyone.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Jeff attended a promotional screening of The Young Victoria.