Despite slight dramatization, "Young Victoria" is charming and captivating.
After a life of being controlled, the 17-year-old Victoria has no intentions of giving into the pressures and royal power struggles that shadow her as next in line for the throne. Victoria forcefully refuses the efforts of her conniving mother and her scheming adviser to sign a Regency - which would effectively hand over her powers until deemed old enough by the selfish mother and adviser.
Instead of seeing Queen Victoria as a hardened old woman dressed in black, Emily Blunt reminds us that Queen Victoria started her reign young and with a determination to never be controlled again. Blunt plays the part well - balancing a strong will with spunk and honesty.
Sick of the manipulation and control up to this point, the young queen plans to maintain her independence - meaning no marriages, particularly to her handsome cousin Albert. But becoming queen did not make Victoria immune to the effects of falling in love, and the story follows more of her journey of allowing herself to love and accept Albert into her work and life as the queen.
Albert, played by Rupert Friend (Mr. Wickham in "Pride and Prejudice"), tips this historic drama into an enchanting historic romance - and rightfully so. There was a reason Queen Victoria mourned the death of her husband so strongly for the rest of her reign as queen, which ended with her death in 1901 at the age of 81. Prince Albert died at 42, 21 years after their marriage, which produced eight children whose blood continues to exist in many royal courts across Europe. To date, Queen Victoria's 63-year reign is the longest in British history.
When people today remember Queen Victoria, it may be of a strong woman, but nevertheless a woman who remained rather introverted and sullen for much of her life. "Young Victoria," with the perfect amount of sassiness from Blunt, provides a very real portrayal of what Queen Victoria had been like in her youth because Queen Victoria was not always a dour matron dressed in black.
Written by Julian Fellowes, the script deserves praise for showing how the young Queen Victoria fell in love while maintaining her sense of self and sovereignty. Watching Blunt and Friend in these roles was so enjoyable that the movie's end was unsettling, simply because I wanted to stay in the world of Queen Victoria's youth where love and power intermingled and succeeded.
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