No doubt the law-of-diminishing-returns is coming down on these posh Anglophilic dramas on Queens Elizabeth I, Victoria & Elizabeth II. Stephen Frears/Peter Morgan/ Helen Mirren’s THE QUEEN/’06 now looking like the best of the fact-inspired bunch.* Yet here’s director Frears finding one more variation for Victoria as she runs thru another unlikely passion late in her lonely life when a young Indian clerk gets plucked from obscurity, largely for his height, and shipped off to England to present a commemorative coin to Her Majesty as part of the Golden Jubilee celebration. Finding him dashing, knowledgeable & exotic, Victoria develops a late interest in Indian culture while Abdul shows few qualms over his inappropriate ‘forward’ behavior. The first half of the film, largely comic in tone, works best (he’s really a bit of a cheeky bore, which is part of the joke), but as friendship deepens, holes in his story/presentation open him to attack from tradition-minded ministers at a jealous court, particularly Victoria’s testy son Bertie, later King Edward, and the film has trouble sustaining balance & believability. Still, much fun most of the way, with spot on perfs from . . . well, from just about everyone other than Simon Callow, an embarrassment as opera composer Giacomo Puccini.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/DOUBLE-BILL: A last film for Tim Pigott-Smith who came to our attention in another India-themed drama, the superb Granada mini-series THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN/’84.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Yet there are on-going/acclaimed ‘Event Series’ right now on Eliz II and Victoria, while movies, for the moment, have run out of Victoria’s unlikely enthusiasms. This one, something of a follow up to MRS. BROWN/’97, and her special relation with Disraeli has been seen from the P.M.’s side, the Queen’s side, even off-to-the-side (THE MUDLARK/’50). So, what unknown enthusiasms are left to dramatize? A program of four-hand piano duets with Felix Mendelssohn?
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