No spoiler alert required

Rating: 7/10 (4 May 2010)

The Young Victoria is a nice movie. It's so nice that everybody mostly gets along most of the time. Then, almost two hours later, it's over. It's a pretty and pleasantly acted movie. Not that it's boring per se. There are hints of conflict-- the lightly abusive step-father who wants to use the future queen's power for his own agenda (although it's never clear what his agenda is—maybe he's a real do-gooder), the mother who chooses her man above her daughter, the charming Prime Minister who has a reputation for manipulating women and is always hanging about (and what woman wouldn't want Paul Bettany in period costume always within view?), the odds and ends of royals from here and there who promote their own candidates for husband of the queen-to-be. Oh and there's that truly nasty business when the head of the other political party is rather put-out because the newly crowned monarch won't include any women from his team on her list of ladies-in-waiting. Zounds! From a feminist perspective, the queen, being a queen, is required to ask her chosen mate for his hand in marriage, instead of the other way around, which is a fun change. But who will she ask?!!!! Who will it be?!!! Who?!!!!
Well, duh.
The most unexpected nugget the film leaves viewers with is that at one point in time, the Queen after whom the Victorian era, with its prim furnishings and tightly-clenched sphincters was named, was a cute, fun girl who liked to dance and knew a good man when she saw one. She even seemed to like sex, albeit within a monogamous relationship. That really is nice, isn't it?