When Vickie Asserted Herself-Young Victoria ***

Rating: 8/10 (10 May 2011)

Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend make an engaging Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in this interesting film. The problem that I found with it that while it is about Victoria's younger years, it should have been longer. Victoria was a champion of liberal rights, but the picture did not exactly show the reforms that she and Albert achieved in education, housing and the arts. This is merely printed before the credits roll at the end of the film.
Her life was certainly not an easy one. Losing her father early and under the domination of a mother and her difficult adviser, Victoria had to put up with the regent King William, the dead brother of her father, the late king. In a brief supporting role, Jim Broadbent, a previous Oscar winner, is effective, especially in the scene where he insults his sister-in-law. Broadbent almost sounds and certainly looks like the late Art Carney.
If this weren't enough, there were always political considerations in the family, which extended throughout Europe. There is a dominating prime minister and almost a calamity in a scandal involving the Queen's ladies in waiting. If this isn't enough, we have an engaging Albert ready to assert himself, and a near assassination attempt of the Queen.
With all this considered, an hour and forty minutes doesn't give justice to what we're seeing.