Film

Blunt is such a fine actress that it’s strange to see her upstaged by a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. The dog is the most interesting character in The Young Victoria, a historical drama so inert that you begin to wonder why anyone paid for the costumes. The concept of “young” biopics is itself flawed: Yes, Victoria ushered in an era of progress and plenty in Britain, but all of that takes place after the movie ends. Instead, her compressed youth is played as protofeminist high romance, a concept already exhausted (and then some) by the Jane Campion oeuvre.

All shall sigh as one as Victoria (Blunt) resists signing her authority over to a regent—an unheard-of failure to kowtow to authority that onscreen is never shown as anything other than a no-brainer. Later, she forgoes marriage to a bland and unscrupulous politician (Bettany) in favor of the blander and excruciatingly scrupulous Prince Albert (Friend), who is shocked—shocked!—to find that it sometimes rains in England. Smacking of screenwriter’s desperation (at least in context), even a late-breaking assassination attempt fails to shake the movie’s stupor. The script is by the talented Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park), but these films are a matter of style and perspective; change the title to The Young [“insert famous person here”], and it would make little difference.