Judi Dench

Ali Fazal

Tim Pigott-Smith

Eddie Izzard

Adeel Akhtar

Michael Gambon

Paul Higgins

Olivia Williams

Fenella Woolgar

Julian Wadham

Jonathan Harden

Robin Soans

Ruth McCabe

Simon Callow

Benjamin Haigh

Will Christopherson

Martyn Mayger

Deano Bugatti

Penny Ryder

Christopher McMullen

Rita McDonald Damper

Sukh Ojla

Grant Crookes

Shaun Newnham

Nigel Black

Sophie Trott

Andrei Csolsim

Glyn Angell

Lois Temel

Marek Hollands

Nicolas Savidis-Macris

Simon Craddock

Tim Bristow

Cliff Dutton

Martin McGilligan

Benjamin Murrell

Daniel Trevenna

Stuart Whelan

Sam Kenyon

Stephen Frears

Thomas Newman

Danny Cohen

Alan MacDonald

Sarah Finlay

Adam Squires

Consolata Boyle

Lee Hall

Tim Bevan

Loulia Sheppard

Daniel Phillips

Beverley Binda

Andrea Cracknell

Adam James Phillips

Tapio Salmi

Amie Wilson

Ray Marston

Choi Ho Man

Paul Stewart

Peter Keith

Iain Mackay

Peter Mountain

Paul McGeachan

Will Kendal

Terry Robb

Simon Tanner

Alex Mott

Nandini Shrikent

Karan Mally

Sanjeev Maurya

Raj Bhansali

Yash Mehta

Matt Curtis

Sue Hills

Jim Dines

Luca Zappala

Chris Reynolds

Edd Gamlin

Paul O'Hara

Noga Alon Stein

Adam Gascoyne

Eric Fellner

Beeban Kidron

Tracey Seaward

Kate Morath

Sue Harding

Hugo Adams

Dafydd Archard

Mike Dowson

Phil Lee

Becki Ponting

Maria Chamberlain

Karolina Dziwinska

Rob Farris

Patrick Malone

Shaun Richards

Lawrence Hook

Jeanna Mortimer

Melanie Oliver

Ian Wilson

Shrabani Basu

Leo Davis

Lissy Holm

Tania Blunden

Samantha Knox-Johnston

Pranav Sahni

Rakesh Singh

Gouri Dutt

Olivia Lloyd

Jayant Rao

Deborah Saban

Mohit Silswal

Krishan Pratap Singh

Amar Vaswani

Alison Clements

Constantine Katsaras

Darren Lyttle

Jonathan Maris

Dan Marsden

Chris Rosser

Mark Stevenson-Ellis

Adam Mendez

Julian Spencer

Sam Stefan

Garry Hedges

Jake Polonsky

Bobbie Edwards

Johanna Garrad

Rosie Grant

Riyaz Ali Merchant

Marion Weise

Ryan Colligan

Gerard McCann

J.A.C. Redford

Ankita Batra

Jami Chan

Lois Gration

Sheerin Khosrowshahi-Miandoab

Lawrence Mason

Drama

History

Victoria & Abdul

Working Title Films

BBC Film

Perfect World Pictures

Cross Street Films

Focus Features

India Take One

India

United Kingdom

United States of America

English

اردو

हिन्दी

based on novel or book

biography

based on true story

19th century

british monarchy

lgbt interest

Peter McGinn

I wouldn't say this is a memorable historical film, but it was interesting and entertaining enough to hold my attention. I researched the background a little bit, and I am not sure why they made some of their changes to how the unlikely friendship actually transpired. I assume it was to simplify the story. 

And as it happens, It is surprising that the story has gotten told at all. Apparently extreme measures undertaken by the royals after to obliterate any record of the unlikely friendship after Queen Victoria's death. anyone who has read about the history of British monarchs will recognize this attempt to control the narrative of the royals as they guard the parameters of the succession.

But it is worth a watch regardless about exactly how accurate the details are. History is written by the ones in control, and this is a cool exception.

Filipe Manuel Neto

**A good movie, on almost every level.**

I really like films with a historical background or those linked to the monarchy, which has a lot to do with my personal life, my birth family and also with my work as historian. I was very curious about this movie, and today I finally got to see it. And I can say that it was really good. I can't say that everything is fine, there are several scenes and moments that seem too imaginative to have actually happened, but the overall picture is quite positive.

The relationship between the mighty Queen Victoria and this personal servant of hers was surely the subject of harsh criticism and enormous misunderstanding. The British court was then, like most of Europe, deeply prejudiced, racist and Eurocentric. There was really a belief that Europe was civilization and that the colonizing and imperialist efforts of the European powers would take some of that civilization to a barbaric world, with strange customs, lacking in Christian religion, education, manners, modern infrastructures that only white Europeans could manage. This was the British stance in India, and elsewhere in its empire. For us this may be shocking, and we have seen a wave of destruction of statues and monuments linked to the European colonial past because of this general feeling of shock and repudiation… but history will not disappear just because we sweep it under the rug. It is with the teachings of history, inside and outside the classroom, that we learn, and erasing the visible traces of a past that offends us (or that offends other peoples) is useless. I think we shouldn't be ashamed of having been empires, and of having been present in other countries, or having dominated other peoples. For better or worse, this marked both sides (dominators and dominated), and the cultural exchanges that took place helped shape the countries and peoples we know today. I think it is much more productive to learn from all this: to learn not to make the same mistakes, and on the other hand, to make the best use of the bridges and links that this common past has established between different nations from several parts of the world. Sorry for the rant, but I think it comes in handy.

As the respectable reader has already noticed, the film explores the relationship between two very different people: the queen of the greatest empire of her time and a humble clerk who happened to serve her, becoming one of her favorites and shocking the racist and futile court. Much of what we know of this connection has been lost because the letters and documents were overwhelmingly burned after Victoria's death, but I think the film really captured the essence of what happened there. Judi Dench is a great actress, who curiously has already given life to Victoria in an older film, and is perfectly suited for the role and manages to establish a very positive chemistry with Ali Fazal, who is charismatic, friendly and captures our interest and our affinity. There are several characters in the film that seem sketchy and uninteresting, and most royal court figures fall into this group. I liked, however, the performance of Michael Gambon, Tim Piggot Smith and Eddie Izzard. The end of the film is particularly touching.

On a technical level, I have to highlight the judicious and intelligent choice of filming locations, in particular Osborne House, a former royal residence closely linked to the monarch. The film uses that footage well, captures color and light very well, and builds an elegant, warm cinematography that's pleasing to the eye and very engaging. Being a period film, an extra effort was put into the sets and costumes, and I can say that I haven't noticed any major errors or problems here. The biggest criticism I can make is the difficulty I felt in understanding the passage of time: it would be difficult, for someone who didn't know the story well, to say if the action of the film takes place in the course of just a few days or the course of several years. Also, the score by Thomas Newman, written for the film, turned out to be excellent.

Victoria & Abdul( 2017)

History's most unlikely friendship.

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A review by Peter McGinn

Written by Peter McGinn on Fri Apr 03 2020

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