Entertainment in a Glance

Language: English
100min 49secs | 640 x 272 | | XviD MPEG 4 Codec | AC3 2.0 198kbit/s | 1.6Gb
Starring : Emily Blunt, Jim Broadbent, Mark Strong, Paul Bettany, Princess Beatrice
Genre: Drama

“Even a palace can be a prison,” muses Britain’s most eligible princess in The Young Victoria, recalling her early years cooped up as a Queen-in-waiting. Royalty is a gilded cage – we know as much, ad nauseam, from our heritage dramas – but this is a somewhat constricting way to look at history, however nice the furniture. The first half of Jean-Marc Vallée’s film, cramped and exposition-packed, gives few clues to its finer qualities, give or take a hilariously hammy Jim Broadbent as the dying William IV, and a reliably wry Paul Bettany as Lord Melbourne.

First we must be brought up to speed, with literal use of the Hanover family tree and much whispering at swish royal functions along the lines of “That’s Melbourne, he’s the current Prime Minister, but oh look – there’s Robert Peel, who’s nipping at his heels”. At 17, Victoria (Emily Blunt) is bravely holding out against the attempts by her scheming mother (Miranda Richardson) and hissable advisor (Mark Strong) to set up a Regency, on the basis that she’s too young for succession.