Informative but insufficiently engaging

Rating: Null/10 (24 December 2010)

Queen Victoria was Britain's longest-serving monarch, reigning for an incredible 63 years (1837-1901) and the abiding image of her is an aged and dour woman, but this film presents a very different picture, the run-up to and the early period after her taking the crown at the tender age of just 18. It was a challenge for Emily Blunt, still only in her mid twenties, to carry a major movie in this way but she gives a fine performance, by turns vulnerable, assertive, impetuous, and amorous.
Diana, Princess of Wales, famously asserted that there were always three people in her marriage to Prince Charles and her royal predecessor Victoria - albeit in a different sense - had many people in her courtship with and marriage to her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Rupert Friend), most notably Lord Melbourne (Paul Bettany), and this account makes plain the personal and political manoeuvring around the teenager as she sought her independence.
It is a fascinating history tale by French-Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée but, as a film, fails to excite or engage, since the script by Julian Fellowes does not come up to the standards of his work for "Gosford Park". Splendid settings and costumes are not enough.
Footnote: Sarah Ferguson, once a member of the British royal family, was a producer on the film and one of her daughters, Beatrice, has a non-speaking and uncredited cameo role as a lady-in-waiting.