The Young Victoria

A fresh look at the first chapters in the monarch's life, while maintaining historical fidelity.

All told, The Young Victoria is a very well-made if not especially memorable picture, moving with all the grace and steadfastness of a waltz Victoria and Albert share, but absent any urgency or anything particularly exclamatory.

A sumptuous period drama.

Emily Blunt, one of the best and most glamorous actresses to come out of England in recent years, makes an unusual but highly successful choice for the young Victoria.

It’s a muddled but plush experience overall, and if you’re a royalist completist or a historical romantic, you’ll probably have a decent time.

Really, Young Victoria is just a lot of costumes in fond search of some drama. And finding precious little.

Emily Blunt’s Victoria and Rupert Friend’s Albert come across like museum mannequins – utterly devoid of any genuine passion.

This is a very romantic movie about a young woman in direct line to become a Queen, who finds true love despite the political forces trying to manipulate her. Should appeal to anyone interested in history and romance.

This film tells the events surrounding the ascension to the throne of Queen Victoria of Great Britain, one of the most striking and well-remembered queens that the country has had to date. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, has a script by Julian Fellowes, the direction of Sarah Ferguson (former Duchess of York) and features Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend in the lead roles. Although the film doesn't have a completely neutral script, it sought to portray the truth of historical facts, even failing to judge them impartially and having some historical inaccuracies in the middle. When a historical film is made it shouldn't change the history portrayed, even for dramatic purposes. But this unfortunately costs to understand for most directors and writers. The sets and costumes are excellent and are fully consistent with the time, the picture isn't surprising but does what it has to do, the soundtrack uses reasonably well pieces of classical music in vogue at the time. Most actors fulfill their functions, especially the rotten duo Miranda Richardson and Mark Strong. Emily Blunt, however, has earned **** by giving life to a dreamy and passionate Victoria, still ignored by us and obscured by the queen she would become later. The film managed to capture the relationship between Victoria and Albert in a very forceful way, such as the importance of that for the re-popularization of the monarchy during that time. This film tries to be a historical drama with deep touches of romance, taking the lives and loves of Victoria to show us that a monarchy is not only gold, sex and scandals. It fulfilled that purpose appealing to the audience's heart with a Victoria who we managed to like, and that's far from the unpleasant old lady that comes to our minds most of the time.

This is a pretty well made historical drama, with lots of lavish dances and pageantry shown. I liked the costumes and the cinematography generally. The story I was pretty familiar with, having seen the TV series Victoria and so on. Emily Blunt does give a good performance, while Rupert Friend plays prince Albert. It may be regarded as a little sentimental perhaps but I think it's a pretty decent film. all in all - just not exactly greatly memorable but equally not bad. I should note that there were quite a few instances of hushed dialogue, which I found a bit hard to follow entirely and so might frustrate some.

A solid showcase for Emily Blunt. Nothing else. Good production yes, but stop there.

Emily Blunt is very much excellent in this film, and definitely deserving of her Golden Globe nomination. Also, technically (especially when it comes to costume design and art direction/set decoration) the film excels. However, the story is rather slow and somewhat boring to be quite frank. Also, very predictable and very "royal" in a way of character building. Yes, royalty is supposed to be all "royal" to the "common people" but they are real people, too, and that came across rather rarely, mainly due to the sceenplay. So basically, despite being visually great and with good performances, ultimately the story is so usual and so predictable (irrelevant on whether it is actually accurate historically or not - probably not completely, anyway) that one is left somewhat unsatisfied with the film. But it surely is not a bad film, by any stretch of the word. Definitely recommended to be watched for the great costumes and Emily Blunt's performance!