Victoria and Abdul
Directed by: Stephen Frears
Written by: Lee Hall - Based on the book by Shrabani Basu
Starring: Judi Dench, Ali Fazal, Tim Pigott-Smith, Eddie Izzard, Adeel Akhtar, Michael Gambon, Paul Higgins, Olivia Williams, Fenella Woolgar, Simon Callow
Biography/Drama/History - 112 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 27 Sep 2017
Written by: Lee Hall - Based on the book by Shrabani Basu
Starring: Judi Dench, Ali Fazal, Tim Pigott-Smith, Eddie Izzard, Adeel Akhtar, Michael Gambon, Paul Higgins, Olivia Williams, Fenella Woolgar, Simon Callow
Biography/Drama/History - 112 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 27 Sep 2017
You probably know exactly what I mean regarding Victoria and Abdul when I say, “Your mom will like it.” That means it’s a period piece with complicated costumes, takes place in Old England, manners are prized above sense, and it stars Judi Dench. Put those together and all of our moms will be at the weekend matinee unwrapping hard candy with a few tissues up their sleeves on call for when the feelings hit toward the end. The eponymous Abdul is in the film just as much as the Queen, hence his name above the fold, but they may as well name the film Mrs. Brown 2: Time to Cheer Up the Old Bat Again.
It’s cheating! Judi Dench (Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children) already played Queen Victoria 20 years ago; she was even nominated for an Oscar for the effort. Her husband, Albert, died and here comes good ol’ John Brown to cheer her up. Well, now Mr. Brown has passed on and it appears to be Abdul’s turn to turn that imperial frown upside down. I heard more than a passing snicker in the theater when Dench looks off in the distance, lost in her own flashback, saying, “How much fun John Brown and I had here.” Director Stephen Frears offers no further dialogue on who that is; he knows very well you know who it is. For every mom in the audience this weekend saw Mrs. Brown.
It’s cheating! Judi Dench (Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children) already played Queen Victoria 20 years ago; she was even nominated for an Oscar for the effort. Her husband, Albert, died and here comes good ol’ John Brown to cheer her up. Well, now Mr. Brown has passed on and it appears to be Abdul’s turn to turn that imperial frown upside down. I heard more than a passing snicker in the theater when Dench looks off in the distance, lost in her own flashback, saying, “How much fun John Brown and I had here.” Director Stephen Frears offers no further dialogue on who that is; he knows very well you know who it is. For every mom in the audience this weekend saw Mrs. Brown.
In this reverse Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, India comes to England in the visage of Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal, Furious 7). The royal court requires an Indian subject to play a part in a ceremony the Queen will never remember, and Abdul fits the bill. Who knew the pair would realize they are kindred spirits; two souls who feel lost amongst the pageantry relying on the other for assurance and a friendly ear. To the horror of the hovering status seekers, Abdul’s role climbs from footman, to teacher, to favorite son. Dazzled by Abdul’s folksy metaphors and the way his presence seems to ruffle everyone else’s feathers, Victoria suddenly wants to learn Urdu and the Koran. I had no idea the Queen who went down in history as the patron of tradition and stuffiness was so progressive.
Even in the hands of a most capable director, for Frears is the genius behind High Fidelity and has been Oscar-nominated twice for The Grifters and The Queen (the one about how the Windsors tried to cover up the fact they treated Diana like shit), Victoria and Abdul is two separate halves - and the second half crawls. Part one is doused with that dry British humor Americans crave. The wardrobe staff dresses the foreigners in a sash because their native clothing “didn’t look authentic enough.” Abdul’s fellow servant, first played comic and then sympathetic by Adeel Akhtar (The Big Sick), keeps calling the British “barbarians” and “savages” because of the animal parts they like to eat and their phony pomp and circumstance.
The film’s spirit changes halfway through. Cultural inquisitiveness transforms into palace intrigue. The courtiers dig up dirt on Abdul’s past, they threaten consequences, and this unsettling melodrama comes off as a shoddy episode of The Tudors. Abdul is no saint and a big thumbs up to Lee Hall, who adapted the novel into the screenplay, for reminding us the man has his own motives and methods of rising through the ranks. Bertie (Eddie Izzard, The LEGO Batman Movie), Victoria’s eldest son who later on became Edward VII, comes off the worst and I’m guessing it’s a close approximation of the man probably forgotten by history for a reason. Seriously, when is the last time you heard someone mention Edward VII?
The films starts with one of those “Based on actual events” primers but wryly adds a cautionary, “…mostly.” The events are based on Abdul’s diaries not discovered until 2010; I have no doubt any fact checkers pulled all of their hair out attempting to substantiate any of it. Yet, I was not so much interested in whether or not Victoria employed a Muslim Indian to the chagrin of the Lords and Ladies of the house, but in all of the allusions Frears snuck in of what was to come. Please remember what Victoria’s children and grandchildren did to tear apart the world in the decades after her death. Kaiser Wilhelm II was her grandson; he makes an appearance here. Empress Alexandra of Russia, executed by the Bolsheviks, was her granddaughter. Queen Victoria’s loins shaped the world you know today.
There are also hints of India’s eventual independence. Viceroy’s House, a film released a few weeks prior to this one, and sharing Michael Gambon and Simon Callow as cast members, is a far more accurate representation living up to its “Based on actual events” proclamation. The Royal Court in Victoria and Abdul are portrayed as funny racists; their jokes are so clueless they have no idea how racist they are. Most of the Mountbatten staff in Viceroy’s House are menacing racists; they cannot believe the superior race is packing up shop and leaving a country the size of India to its savage inhabitants. No such realism pops up in Frears’ version of Victoria. Keep it light; keep it mostly sunny. That’s what our moms want. If they wanted the real world, they wouldn’t be so anxious for the next Downton Abbey lookalike.
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