The Young Victoria Fails to Impress

To be honest, I wasn't sure whether The Young Victoria (2009) was intended to be a PG version of The Tudors, or a historicized reimagining of The Princess Diaries. This is, I suppose, a problem with all historically rooted films that attempt to be more than documentaries or dry re-enactments. Ultimately, there were many good points in this film, but I found myself struggling to figure out what exactly the point of it all was. Young Victoria suffers from a surplus of subplots and a deficit of depth.

Victoria is in her late teens (at least at the beginning) and, played by Emily Blunt, is chafing under the strict rules established by her overbearing mother, also named Victoria, and the latter's chief advisor John Conroy. She is, as a voiceover explains in the beginning, the only viable heiress to the throne of her dying grandfather, King George III, and, as a result, many forces are vying to control her: her uncle the king of Belgium (who actually despatches Victoria's lover and future husband, Albert, in an attempt to control her), Conroy and her mother (of course), prime minister Lord Melbourne (and Melbourne's various political opponents), etc., etc.

King George's long-anticipated death seemingly frees her from her mother's control, only to expose how perilously unprepared the new Queen Victoria is for the role thrust upon her. She simultaneously seeks to avoid falling under control of the various competing political powers in England, and at the same time ends up falling for one ally after another. Her mother's departure offers the opportunity for Lord Melbourne to enter her good graces, and her firm support for Melbourne is nearly disastrous when the latter is forced out of office. She falls in love with Albert in the meantime; the relationship between them is supposed to be genuinely loving, although I was left unconvinced of how that could be, and in any case Albert, raised to be a far more adept political manipulator, seems to take control of her affairs in Melbourne's wake. The movie closes with the two of them, metaphorically speaking, riding off into the royal sunset, shortly after Albert is wounded (though not killed) by a would-be assassin.

What is the principal plot of this movie? Is it the period of tumultuous political transition? If so, this was most unclear. Victoria claims to the audience that she hopes to remain uncontrolled and independent. This makes her rapid decision to allow Lord Melbourne to control palace affairs inexplicable. Her marriage to Albert does not seem to give her a modicum of independence, either: Albert is clearly the more clever politically, and begins to take charge of the royal household almost immediately. Victoria is apparently content to settle into the role of loving wife, even though she, and not he, remains the head of state. In a riveting early scene, a young Albert tells the yet-to-be-crowned princess that if she does not wish to be a pawn, she must learn to play the game better than those who would play her. It is not at all clear that Victoria has fully learned this lesson.

Nor, it must be said, is it at all clear why we should care whether she has or not. This is early enough in modern English history that the monarchs still had at least some power left, but is not clear what power this is, or how Victoria wields it. The most controversial "political" decisions featured in the film are limited to her decisions over which ladies-in-waiting she will appoint to the royal household. You could, plausibly, watch The Young Victoria as an extended two-hour controversy over who has the power to hire the maid. Before George's death, Victoria is repeatedly berated with demands to sign contracts promising regency to one uncle or advisor or another. Why would they all bother, if this is the only decision she would be required to make, anyways?

Or perhaps it is the stirring romance between Victoria and Albert. Yet if this is so, the movie is dubious indeed. We are not privy to most of the scenes of personal bonding so necessary to a developing romantic relationship. Albert and Victoria both seem to resent their parents' efforts to control them, but why they should love each other is much less clear. The film's closing remark that Victoria had Albert's clothes laid out daily for decades after his untimely young death at the age of 42 is probably meant to be touching. However, it occurs in the context of a royal household so riven by bureaucratic incompetency that her fireplaces are repeatedly left unlit (those who lay out the wood and those who light the fires come from different departments and apparently cannot reconcile their schedules), and in which a ceremonial supper for a previous king's guard was still laid out nightly years after his death. Perhaps she simply forgot to fire the people responsible for the prince's wardrobe.

Other worthy subplots receive even less attention. Her mother's influence vanishes, and so does her screen time; we never quite know what happens to her, in the end. Victoria repeatedly expresses a profound and touching concern over the plight of the poor and the dispossessed of England. She demands, on several occasions, that some action be taken to ease their poverty. Yet none of these efforts are ever shown on screen. Her devotion to Lord Melbourne as prime minister is particularly bizarre in light of Melbourne's repeated on-screen dismissal of charity and social policy as irrelevant and boring. Albert always claims to be much more concerned about the fate of the poor, but it is not clear whether he genuinely feels inspired to help them or whether this is just an early ploy to impress Victoria.

It can't be easy writing another film about an institution as venerable in English history as the monarchy. At the same time, it's hard for a film about such an institution to be dismissed as pedantic and too boring to be worth watching. But if this film were about anybody other than the queen and her husband, it would be a rather poor attempt at romantic fiction. I hoped for more.