Guest Post: The Young Victoria

My rating on a 1-10 scale: 8.5
Main characters: Victoria, Albert
Genre: Drama, Biopic
Recognizable actors: Rupert Friend, Mark Strong, Harriet Walter, Emily Blunt 
Length: 105 minutes
Based on: The Life of Queen Victoria before and after her ascension to the throne.
Time period: 1837 - 1840s
Year it came out: 2009
Story: Princess Victoria is the only rightful heir to the throne of England, but her mother, the Duchess of Kent, and Sir John Conroy, a friend of the Duchess's who manages her affairs, wants Victoria to sign a contract that would allow the Duchess to rule as Victoria's co-regent if Victoria takes the throne while she is young (which would allow Sir John to indirectly run England). Victoria refuses each time they ask.
My overall opinion: This is a very good period drama! I didn't know very much about Queen Victoria before (let alone her early life), but now I have a little bit more of an understanding of her early life and of her romance with her husband, Albert.

Emily Blunt was a very good Queen Victoria. Throughout the entire movie, not only do you know and understand what she is going through, but you also know what she is thinking. 

I didn't think I would care for Rupert Friend's Albert: having only seen part of Pride and Prejudice 2005, I wasn't too impressed with him as Wickham. But after viewing The Young Victoria, I was happy to see that he did a good job with the role. We do get a little glimpse into what Albert is thinking: how he loves Victoria, but he cannot ask her to marry him since she has to ask him. I was a little skeptical of his German accent, but I didn't think that it was bad.

The love story part of The Young Victoria was sweet. I was rooting for them the whole time (okay, yes I had a feeling that they were going to get married since it happened in history, but you get my point). It did get a little mushy in some spots (and there was some content issues there, but I'll talk about how to avoid those scenes later on).

The costumes are A-MAZ-ING! Lots of colors (except for the mourning clothes, of course) and a number of them I wouldn't mind wearing. The costumes ranged from 1830s dresses to early 1840s dresses. Very, very nice!

Overall, this was a very good movie to watch. The film is rated PG, but there are a couple of scenes that you may want to avoid, mainly after Victoria and Albert get married. Once you see the wedding scene, there are a couple of scenes that you will want to skip; the good news is that they are right next to each other (or if not right next to each other, very, very close together). So if you skip a couple of minutes there (I can't give an exact number, but definitely no more than ten minutes), then you should be fine. This movie is definitely worth a watch!

If you would like to read my original review of The Young Victoria at my blog, you can find the review here.

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