First review of "The Young Victoria"

Also known as: Emily Blunt's Oscar Vehicle

Source: Variety

Anyone who complains they don't make love stories like they used to will get a kick out of "The Young Victoria," a biopic of the early years of Blighty's longest reigning queen and, in particular, her courtship with the love of her life, Prince Albert. Tip-top casting and playing, led by young thesps Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend as the royal lovebirds, a succulently crisp script by Julian Fellowes ("Gosford Park") and trim helming by French-Canadian Jean-Marc Vallee ("C.R.A.Z.Y.") combine in well-groomed, upscale, three-hankie entertainment for the Masterpiece Theater crowd. Pic bows in the U.K. March 6.

A brief intro with Victoria as an 11-year-old (Michaela Brooks) sets her up as a victim of her position, caught between the machinations of two royal uncles and a prisoner of protocol and social rules. But in Blunt's beautifully modulated perf, which balances royal reserve, girlish enthusiasm and lightly tempered steel, the film is in no way a morbid study in self-pity. The biggest compliment one can pay Blunt is that the more familiar Queen Victoria of later life can already be glimpsed in her perf without ever getting in the way of her youthful portrait.

Story proper begins in 1837, just prior to the 18th birthday of the then Princess Victoria of Kent (Blunt), who, in the absence of any other heirs of King William (Jim Broadbent, hilariously ornery), is next in line to the throne.

However, so far Victoria has been kept away from the court by her domineering mom, the Duchess of Kent (Miranda Richardson), and mom's ambitious adviser, Sir John Conroy (Mark Strong). If the sickly William soon kicks the bucket and mom and Conroy can get the still underage Victoria to sign a Regency Order, the Duchess will be able to rule in her name and Conroy can rule through the duchess.

Victoria holds out against their bullying, but across the Channel her uncle, Belgian King Leopold (Thomas Kretschmann), is plotting to get his nephew, Albert (Rupert Friend), married to Victoria for political convenience. Albert, who is as dominated by his father as Victoria is by her mom, is coached in Victoria's likes and dislikes, but when the two finally meet, Victoria takes a fancy to him when he drops his act.

Blunt and Friend quickly establish the screen chemistry vital to the movie's success in a delicious scene where the two play chess under the watchful eyes of their scheming elders. The complicity they develop forms the basis for a long-distance courtship by letters which slowly ripens into love.

However, after becoming queen at the age of 18, Victoria still feels unready to commit to marriage before establishing her own authority. Artfully manipulated by pol Lord Melbourne (Paul Bettany), whom she takes to be a friend, she finally gives in to her own heart and Albert's patient courting, and the two, who are only months apart in age, finally marry three years later, in 1840.

The lead up to the proposal of marriage is played as a romantic-political triangle between Victoria, Albert and Melbourne. Blunt's controlled portrayal of the young woman's fractionally different attitudes to the two main men in her life is one of the pic's major delights. When she finally reveals her true feelings at the movie's 70-minute mark, the remainder of the film, sketching her and Albert's first years of marriage, movingly surfs on the tide of emotions unleashed.

Fellowes' screenplay packs in a host of characters, and some background politics such as Victoria's edgy relationship with Tory prime minister Sir Robert Peel (Michael Maloney), in a series of brief, pithily dialogued sequences. What could have been a bumpy dramatic ride -- and is, in the early stages -- is gradually smoothed into longer, more satisfying arcs by Vallee's fluid direction, smooth cutting by Jill Bilcock and Matt Garner, and especially by Ilan Eshkeri's copious score. The score lacks any strong musical motifs but its classical, vamp-till-ready style lends both dignity and romance to the material.

It's Blunt's show, but both Friend, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the real Albert, and Bettany, playing way older than he is, are almost equal partners. Both their characters nicely modulate as the movie progresses, with Bettany's Melbourne becoming almost sympathetic.

Supports are solid down the line, with both Richardson's mom and Harriet Walter's aunt the main standouts. Both thesps, like Friend, sport realistic German accents, emphasizing how many of the senior royals of the time were in fact Teutons. Realism doesn't quite extend, however, to Blunt's accent, which is pure British cut glass, even though Victoria's first lingo was German and she never quite mastered English grammar.