Victoria & Abdul

Sunday afternoon I decided to see Victoria & Abdul.  I was initially very lukewarm about this film because, frankly, I felt that this story had already been told much better in Mrs. Brown (which also stars Judi Dench).  While it does have a similar plot to the previous film, I found Victoria & Abdul to be absolutely charming.  Queen Victoria (Judi Dench) is old and barely able to get out of bed for an endless round of ceremonial duties which hold little interest for her.  Abdul (Ali Fazal) is randomly selected to present Victoria with a ceremonial coin from India as part of the Golden Jubilee.  Victoria takes a liking to Abdul and spends most of her time with him, much to the dismay of the Prince of Wales (Eddie Izzard), the Prime Minister (Michael Gambon) and her household staff.  I'm sure that there were a lot of liberties taken with the historical accuracy of this film and there has been a lot of criticism about the portrayal of Britain's colonization of India, but I enjoyed it as a story about an unlikely friendship.  Dame Judi Dench is brilliant in this role, as ever, and there is an incredibly affecting scene where she laments the fact that everyone she loves has died while she goes on and on.  Ali Fazal is very endearing as Abdul and it is easy to see why Victoria would be so enamored of him.  The other characters are pretty one-dimensional but the two strong central performances make up for that.  The film is gorgeously shot, especially the scenes in Scotland, and the costumes and interiors are  everything that you could want from a British period-piece.  In short, it is a lovely little film that I enjoyed much more than I thought I would!