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2009-year-end-review-see-all

Review: The Young Victoria

No wonder there are more films about Elizabeth I
By PETER KEOUGH  |  December 22, 2009
2.5 2.5 Stars

 

Who knew Queen Victoria was such a babe? That's the message sent by early paintings of the teen queen. Maybe not on the level of Emily Blunt, who in Jean-Marc Vallée's stodgy bio-pic plays Victoria with coltish nuance and shrewdness. But certainly sexier than the whey-faced harridan whose name has become synonymous with repression and hypocrisy.

This, however, does not suffice for a movie, and neither does Victoria's largely epistolary romance with fresh-faced Prince Albert (Rupert Friend), who in one of their first scenes together draws the obvious parallel between their role in the power struggle between waning European royal houses and the pieces on a chess board. No wonder filmmakers have favored Elizabeth I: on her side, a reign of beheadings, burning heretics, and armadas as against, here, a scandal about retaining the wrong ladies-in-waiting.

Not that Vallée helps by isolating Victoria from the period's politics and culture, though Jim Broadbent does make a fine, red-faced William IV.

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ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH
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  •   LITE AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL?  |  December 30, 2009
    If you had enough of the end of the world with 2012 , you might be relieved when it comes to 2010.
  •   REVIEW: THE YOUNG VICTORIA  |  December 22, 2009
    Who knew Queen Victoria was such a babe?
  •   REVIEW: BROKEN EMBRACES [LOS ABRAZOS ROTOS]  |  December 22, 2009
    No filmmaker generates narrative like Pedro Almodóvar. Five minutes into Broken Embraces and he's got half a dozen potential storylines spinning.
  •   REVIEW: NINE  |  December 22, 2009
    It doesn't get much farther from human experience than this: an adaptation of a Broadway production adapting a film ( 8-1/2 ) about a filmmaker who imagines making a film.
  •   REVIEW: A SINGLE MAN  |  December 22, 2009
    Christopher Isherwood published his novel about a middle-aged homosexual grieving for a lost lover, the frank depiction of gay desire scandalized some readers.

 See all articles by: PETER KEOUGH

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