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Created Jan 22, 2010 11:47AM PST • Edited Dec 22, 2010 09:56PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   This ultimate princess movie recounts one of history’s greatest love stories. But it’s more than a chick flick given the lens it provides into the geopolitical machinations at the heart of the greatest empire the world has ever known. Students of history and those interested in the British monarchy will find it breathtaking.

   The origin story of Queen Victoria, it honors its royal subject by replacing the popular image of a dour old widow with that of a strong and beautiful girl whose great gifts included character, willpower and the British monarchy as the Empire rose to its apotheosis. The Young Victoria’s success lies in making this nearly ancient story seem fresh to 21st Century eyes without applying an overtly modern sensibility. Victoria and Albert were creatures of their time and station. Their success in loving each other and in modernizing the British monarchy deserves to be celebrated, as does this movie.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Emily Blunt – whom I’ve long derided but recently praised – proves herself a better actress than I am a critic by ably playing the longest reigning Queen and most powerful woman in history. She shows the girl and then the woman inside the ultimate Ice Queen.

   Rupert Friend’s Prince Albert matches her turn for turn, as only seems appropriate. More importantly for girls interested in this Princess story, he’s quite the pretty boy, notwithstanding the wispy whiskers that were the fashion of the day.

   The stellar cast includes many standouts:

   • Paul Bettany’s Lord Melbourne comes across as dashing and devilish. However, Bettany is only a decade older than Blunt, while the real Melbourne was four decades older than Victoria. Thus their supposed flirtatious relationship is an only-in-the-movies one.
   • Miranda Richardson well plays Victoria’s conflicted and unsympathetic mother.
   • Mark Strong plays the craven courtier who tried to wrest Victoria’s reign from her. As the man behind the Kensington System used to isolate and control Victoria when she was a little girl, he’s the movie’s villain. Strong plays bad well, most recently as Lord Blackwood in Sherlock Holmes.
   • Jim Broadbent plays a richly addled King William, Victoria’s Uncle and predecessor on the Throne, while Harriet Walter’s Queen Adelaide – William’s German wife – comes across as crisply Teutonic.

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars Really Great 4.5

8. Male Costars Really Great 4.5

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    Hugely romantic, albeit non-sensual (Victorian sensibilities and all that), the film brings to life the resplendent existence of the most privileged people who ever lived. It also shows the ridiculousness of that existence, some of which Prince Albert put to right as he gained power, the beginnings of which the film well shows.

    The Young Victoria’s producers include Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, and Martin Scorsese, the Duke of New York (cinematically speaking). Fergie has written a couple of books on Queen Victoria. Clearly her personal experience as a Royal gives her unique insight.

    Along with French-Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée and British patriotic writer Julian Fellowes, they should be immensely proud of their production.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

12. Play Great 4.0

    The film triggered a solid man-cry after Alfred proved himself fearless and Victoria realized what she could lose. Another throat-catching moment came through a text epilogue that revealed the lifetime strength of Victoria’s love for Albert.

13. Music Really Great 4.5

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    The entire production serves as an ode to Magnificent Britannia: Royal splendor, the riches of which the world had never seen nor would again. For instance, the scene when Victoria first enters the newly completed Buckingham Palace should be required viewing for anyone fancying a trip to Ye Olde London. Victoria describes her new palace as “splendid.” The same can be said for all the visuals in this splendid costume epic.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.6

    Victorian sensibilities reign, notwithstanding a modest wedding night scene.

17. Sex Titillating 1.7

18. Violence Fierce 1.6

19. Rudeness Polite 1.4

21. Reality

    Glib 1.3

    Raised by a German mother, wife of a German prince, yet destined to be Queen of England for over 60 years, Victoria’s name – suffixed with an n – would come to designate many things: an era when the sun never set on the British Empire and repressed sexuality, to name two, not to mention San Francisco’s favorite style of residential architecture.

    Victoria & Albert reigned together for 20 years, Victoria going on alone for a full 40 years after typhoid took Albert from her when he was only 42. No British sovereign reigned longer. It’s safe to say none had as happy or successful a marriage either: The offspring of their nine children went on to populate the royal palaces of Europe while the Widow Queen’s love for her Prince never slackened through the decades that followed his death.

    Amazingly the Bedchamber Crisis depicted in the movie really happened. Ridiculous but true.

    The movie is guilty of two rFactor liberties, described in the CircoReality commentary below. Warning: Reading about them contains a bit of a plot spoiler.

22. Circumstantial Glib 2.0

    Two reality enhancements heighten the drama.

    • Lord Melbourne was much, much older than Victoria, so wouldn’t be able to “make her fall in love with him” as the movie had it.
    • Prince Albert was not winged by an assassin’s bullet. Sure made for a dramatic scene in the movie however. Drew a solid man-cry from me.

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0