Review: The Young Victoria

I've heard quite a bit about The Young Victoria around the blogging world. I kind of wanted to see it, but never bought the DVD or seen it on TV. When I came home one day, I saw that it was on one of the movie channels. I missed the first couple of minutes of it, but I got to see the rest of it.

DVD Box Art

Synopsis

The Young Victoria follows the life of Princess Victoria, who eventually becomes Queen Victoria, and how she met Prince Albert and fell in love with him. She became queen at age 18 and was seen by many as inexperienced and not ready for the job.


Characters
There are a couple of actors/actresses that you may recognize in The Young Victoria. Emily Blunt has recently come into the limelight, but also there is Rupert Friend (Pride and Prejudice 2005) as Prince Albert, Mark Strong (Emma 1997) was Sir John Conroy, Harriet Walter (Sense and Sensibility 1995, Little Dorrit 2008) was Queen Adelaide, and Morven Christie (Lost in Austen) was the servant Watson. The screenplay was written by Julian Fellowes, who also created Downton Abbey.

Overall, I thought the cast did a very good job. Emily Blunt I thought was a good Queen Victoria. I don't know very much about Victoria's life, but I found her likable in this movie. A little rebellious, but likable. I found that Emily Blunt acted well in her role, though there were a couple of spots where I thought she acted a little silly as a queen and for the time period, but overall she did a good job. I also enjoyed Rupert Friend's Price Albert, though I was a little skeptical of his German accent (something about it didn't seem perfectly right, but not bad).

I did have a hard time with remembering all the members of the royal family, but that could be due to my missing the first couple of minutes of the movie. When I rewatch this movie, I may have to pay closer attention to the characters with titles.


Scenery
A feast for the eyes! Between the gorgeous houses and the outdoor scenery, there cannot be want of pretty scenes. The colors are very lively and bright.


Costuming

Wow... This must be some of the best costuming I've seen. The dresses are very lively and bright (except for the mourning dresses, of course). There were a number of lovely dresses that Victoria wore. And the bonnets! A number of them had sheer fabric on them, which made them interesting. The dresses were from the 1830s and a little into the 1840s.


Overall: 4/5
Overall, I liked it. There were a couple of scenes that you may want to skip after Victoria and Albert get married (two or three scenes, but they are very close together), but other than that, I don't believe there was anything bad in there. There were two assassination attempts made on Queen Victoria, one which no one was hurt (though many were shocked) and the second where someone was injured, but nothing is shown. I think I would watch this again to pick up on some of the smaller details, though I've read that there are some historical inaccuracies, but that's not unusual for biopics.

The Young Victoria is available on DVD and Blu-Ray. It is rated PG and runs for 105 minutes.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert