The Young Victoria – Review

Love stories are plentiful within the realms of Hollywood, something that we see year after year in comedic and dramatic forms. Not so often does a true love story of sorts emerge into a film, which is handled like somebody gently descending down a staircase on the new GK Films feature, The Young Victoria.

A majority of people only know the Queen Victoria just because of the love/hate relationship she maintained throughout her political career with her country. What not many know is the touching relationship she had with Prince Albert. The balance within the film of her political dramas and the too-good-to-be-true love story, barely tango right with each other until it’s third act. That goes hand-in-hand with Prince Albert, played by Rupert Friend, jumping right into the background for some time thanks to the imbalanced dominance of the political story line. The direction from Jean-Marc Vallée was fine, but one of the things that was a little overdone was the focus-crazy cinematographer and the cut-happy editor.

The relationship between Victoria (Emily Blunt) and Albert (Rupert Friend) felt like a shaky landing. It’s rough, and a bit unsuspecting at first but once it started to get into the groove of it and settled down it flowed fine and became quite natural. Production design and costumes were wonderful, bringing out the most attractive material aspects of the Victorian era out for us all to see.

Even though the film is not entirely historically accurate, for attention grabbing reasons, the story still is pretty solid. The whole notion of love at first sight always seems so alien, something that is unobtainable and can only be reached through means of fairy tales, but as the story plays out, it grinds in the sweet reminder that the love they had for each other is real. The sturdy script, enjoyable cast, and sufficient direction bring together one of the more intriguing period pieces within the past decade.

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