Jack and I loved this story of the friendship between the elderly Queen of England and a young Muslim servant from India at the end of her life. Dame Judi Dench is spectacular in this "unofficial sequel" to Mrs. Brown (1997), which I highly recommend, too. More on that in a moment.
Dench (last blogged for The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) and Ali Fazal (new to me) have good chemistry in their platonic relationship. Many good laughs are provided by Adeel Akhtar (The Dictator, Kumail's brother in The Big Sick, lots of TV, more), who plays Abdul's countryman Mohammed. As for the Brits, Tim Pigott-Smith (over 100 credits, including the title role in the Masterpiece Theatre TV-movie King Charles III, about current Prince Charles ascending to the throne. Pigott-Smith died in April 2017 and his passing and that of production designer Alan MacDonald are observed in the credits) is notable as Sir Henry Ponsonby, the queen's private secretary, as is Eddie Izzard (a stand-up comedian, he's been good in Velvet Goldmine (1998), The Cat's Meow (2001) as Charlie Chaplin, Romance & Cigarettes, Ocean's Twelve and Thirteen (2004, '07), Valkyrie, and the wonderful series The Riches, among others) as "Bertie," Prince of Wales. Simon Callow (last in Viceroy's House) has a cameo as opera composer Giacomo Puccini, who, according to Jack, was a bad singer so Callow's performance is spot on.
Director Stephen Frears (last helmed Florence Foster Jenkins, about a notoriously bad singer) brings to life the screenplay by Lee Hall (Billy Elliot (2000) and War Horse) adapted from the 2011 book by Shrabani Basu.
Cinematographer Danny Cohen and late production designer Alan MacDonald both worked with Frears on Florence and the work is beautiful here as well.
The entire soundtrack by Thomas Newman (most recently scored Passengers) can be streamed from this link.
For back story, do check out the movie Mrs. Brown (stream the whole movie from this link or rent from amazon if the link fails) from 20 years ago, wherein Dench's Victoria (1819-1901) is mourning the 1861 death of her husband and in 1863 becomes close friends with John Brown, a Scottish servant, played by Scottish comedian Billy Connolly. Dench was Oscar-nominated for that role.
References are made to John Brown, especially one particularly clever line, in this movie which begins in 1887 with her Golden Jubilee (i.e. 50 years on the throne), four years after Brown's death. In both cases, the queen is lonely and disconsolate after losing her man and the new one cheers her up. For further youthful Vicky viewing, check out The Young Victoria, starring Emily Blunt, and the PBS series Victoria (you have to be a certain level of donor to stream episodes from their official site), with season 2 coming in January.
Jack wanted me to check two things. As he suspected, the statue shown at the end of the movie isn't actually where the filmmakers show it. And, although, many have written about Queen Victoria's lust for food, her fast eating, the rule that others at the table must stop and have their plates removed when the Queen is finished with her course, and her 50 inch waist (there are some bloomers in a museum somewhere to prove it) on her 4'11" frame, I couldn't find any research proving that she ate with her fingers at royal banquets. It does make for a good scene.
Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are on the cool side for this, averaging 66 and 72% respectively. We think it's wonderful.
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