Product: Victoria & Albert: A Royal Love Affair [VHS] (2001)
Rating: 2.0
It had it's moments ... but
The real life of V and A was interesting and complex enough that there was NO need to pretty it up, or remove so much reality for the sake of the screen play.As many others have noted, the historical inaccuracies are glaring -- to add to those already mentioned --Victoria was wearing mourning for her dead uncle (the late King) at her first meetings with her council and parliament.Neither her relationship nor Albert's relationship with their children was accurate, he was much more loving, she was much more remote.Alice was nearly 19 (and looked a bit older than that) when Albert died -- the actress playing her looked about 14.Victoria too could have stood a bit more 'padding' in her costumes by 1861. Having given birth to 9 children by then, she was far from svelte!Victoria blamed Bertie for his father's death. She could barely stand to be in the same room with him for many months afterwards. The touching scene with the two of them and Alice is balderdash.Recognizing the limited timeframe, they certainly could have deleted some of the more extraneous scenes and found room for anecdotes that DID enhance the actual story being told -- Vicky's marriage, and the time Albert spent with her preparing for it -- the actual death of her mother [we saw the last visit, but never her reaction] -- The Lady Flora scandal early in her reign.Historical issues aside ... it was ok. Reasonably well acted by most, attractive costumes, good production values. As someone who is very familiar with the era and the personalities being portrayed, I did find much of the heavy, plodding 'exposition-dialogue' to be pretty tedius. "As you know Victoria, when your cousin Charlotte, son of George IV died in childbirth and King William and Queen Adelaide also had no surviving children, there was no heir to the throne, so, having been widowed myself after the birth of your half sister Feodora and half-brother Carl, I married your father in order to produce an heir." [Ok... so that's an exageration, but some of it comes darn close...]Really disappointing ...