Film Review: The Young Victoria (2009)
Jean-Marc Vallée's The Young Victoria arrived with impeccable credentials: a screenplay by Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park), a producer credit for Martin Scorsese, and a cast led by one of Britain's finest young actresses in Emily Blunt. Yet for all its pedigree and period splendour, this biopic of the monarch's early years proves a frustratingly superficial affair—one that mistakes lavish costumes and candlelit interiors for genuine dramatic substance.
The narrative commences in 1837, with the ailing King William IV (Jim Broadbent) nearing his end and seventeen-year-old Princess Victoria (Blunt) poised to inherit the throne. What ought to represent the pinnacle of ambition instead becomes a gilded prison. Victoria has been raised under the "Kensington System"—isolated from courtly society, surrounded by scheming relatives, and subjected to the manipulations of her mother the Duchess of Kent (Miranda Richardson) and her mother's comptroller Sir John Conroy (Mark Strong). Meanwhile, her uncle Leopold I of Belgium (Thomas Kretschmann) schemes to secure his nation's future by engineering a marriage between Victoria and his nephew, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Rupert Friend).
Vallée certainly delivers visual authenticity. The reconstruction of 1830s England is meticulous, from the grand state rooms of Buckingham Palace to the muddy thoroughfares of Westminster. Blunt, too, brings intelligence and vulnerability to her portrayal of a young woman thrust into a position of immense responsibility before her character has fully formed. The supporting cast—particularly Broadbent's irascible yet sympathetic William IV and Paul Bettany's roguish Lord Melbourne—provide welcome flashes of vitality.
Yet these considerable assets cannot compensate for the film's fundamental deficiencies. Fellowes's script treats the complex political landscape of the period with frustrating brevity. The fierce parliamentary battles between Conservatives, Liberals, and Radicals that defined Victoria's early reign receive only cursory mention, whilst the debauched excesses and public scandals that characterised the reigns of her Hanoverian predecessors are sanitised entirely. The result is a bloodless conception of monarchy that bears little resemblance to the turbulent reality of nineteenth-century British politics.
More damaging still is the central romance. The film's emotional weight rests entirely upon Victoria's relationship with Albert, yet the chemistry between Blunt and Friend proves conspicuously absent. Fellowes employs cheap narrative contrivances—misunderstandings, protocol breaches, and manufactured obstacles—to generate tension where none exists organically. Their courtship feels dutiful rather than passionate, a diplomatic arrangement masquerading as grand amour. When Albert takes a bullet intended for Victoria in an assassination attempt—a scene that should provide the emotional climax—the moment lands with all the impact of a damp squib.
The irony is particularly acute given that Victoria herself is remembered, somewhat unfairly, for embodying the repressive "Victorian morality" that bears her name. The film endeavours to present her youthful self as passionate and progressive, yet this characterisation remains skin-deep. We are told of her rebellious spirit without being permitted to witness it in any meaningful fashion. The screenplay prefers instead to luxuriate in the trappings of royalty—the coronation rituals, the stately balls, the whispered intrigues—without ever penetrating the psychology of its subject.
The Young Victoria ultimately emerges as a film that will satisfy only the most ardent royalist. It offers the spectacle of monarchy without its substance, romance without chemistry, and history without complexity. For all its polished surfaces and distinguished pedigree, it remains a missed opportunity—a story of power and passion reduced to mere pageantry.
Rating: 4/10
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