Victoria and Abdul (2017)

Director:

Stephen Frears

Starring:

Judi Dench

Ali Fazal

Plot:

Queen Victoria strikes up an unlikely friendship with a young Indian clerk named Abdul Karim.

Review:

I was unaware of Queen Victoria’s relationship and fascination with India before this movie. It was quiet eye opening, though, it’s very obvious that the movie paints things in a very positive light for the queen, though, not actually the country.

Queen Victoria, Judi Dench, is bored with life and basically waiting to die. She hates her children and honestly seems to hate everything about her life but food. Until, one day, Abdul, Ali Fazal, shows up to present a mujer (?) to her. It’s a gold coin.

Fascinated by him, she ends up seemingly becoming obsessed with India. She hires him to teach her everything and finds a new purpose in life. The people around her, especially her son and the heir, are not very thrilled about that, but she’s the queen so they have to get over it.

Judi Dench was amazing, of course, and the story was interesting, but the pacing was kind of off. At first it seemed like this was all happening within a matter of months, but it actually happened over a period of years, but I only know that because of Wikipedia. I feel like they could have done a better job of showing the passage of time instead of trying to make Queen Victoria look like a fat, doddering old person.

Victoria and Abdul was mildly entertaining and presented a new story about an interesting monarch, but it went out of its way to show the titular people in a flattering light.

3/5