Victoria & Albert
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Movie Reviews of Victoria & Albert
Movie Review: Fairy tale Love Story you want to believe.
Summary: 5 Stars
Might not be historically accurate, but worth while watching. Brilliant performance on both Victoria Hamilton and Jonathan Firth.Movie Review: Victoria & Albert
Summary: 5 Stars
A good insight into how the rulers rule and also controlled. I was impressed with Queen Vicotia's strength and standards.Movie Review: Very Informative
Summary: 5 Stars
Lots of creative license in here, but extremely watchable. I loved it!Movie Review: Great Costume Drama, So-So on the History
Summary: 4 Stars
Victoria and Albert is a magnificent costume drama with excellent stars, a compelling story, and lovely settings. As you watch this, please keep in mind that this is a romanticized, not completely factual dramatization of the married life of Queen Victoria and her consort Prince Albert. In other words, enjoy it, but don't take it as accurate history.The first episode is good drama and fairly good history. The young Victoria is shown living a cloistered life in Kensington Palace, used by her ambitious mother and others to maintain a toe hold on power. Then, after the death of her uncle William IV, Victoria's early reign is also depicted accurately as she took on her responsibilities with a dutifulness which characterized her entire reign. Her daughterly relationship with her first Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne is also well done. Finally, her meeting with Prince Albert and their hesitant courtship, engagement, and marriage is both compelling and true to history.
It is with the second episode that the drama begins to overwhelm the history. Victoria and Albert are shown with a family of six children (they really had nine) whom they bounce on their knees, cuddle and nuzzle in public, and obviously adore. Unfortunately the real Queen Victoria was not fond of children, and Prince Albert saw his progeny as useful tools for carrying out his long range plan for the liberalization of Europe, but not a whole lot more. The whitewashing of their troubled relationship with their eldest son and heir Bertie is really ridiculous. Bertie could never do right and was a constant disappointment to his parents, as they never ceased telling him. While Prince Albert's last meeting with Bertie, in which he says something like "I'm sorry we've been so hard on you" is charmingly acted, nothing like that ever took place. I also found the scenes in which Albert repeatedly ponders whether he really loves Victoria a bit unbelievable. Finally, Victoria's composure after Albert's death is completely at odds with history, which records her retreating into deep mourning for the next four decades.
Regardless of the inaccuracies, this is a beautiful piece of work and well worth the price. If you like this Victoria and Albert, may I suggest that you also look into the mini-series Edward the King, produced in the mid 1970s, which covers Bertie's life and times. It is just as well written and acted, and contains a far more true to life depiction of Victoria and Albert.
Movie Review: A Great Period Piece
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm sure if I was a Queen Victoria historian, I would probably have given this a lower number for the innaccuracies presented as fact. Since I'm not, and since it seemed to cover what I do know of her fairly accurately, I'm giving this movie a high mark. First off, I happen to really enjoy period pieces that can pull the viewer in and help them to understand life from another time in history. Braveheart, Gettysburg, Three Soverigns For Sarah, Charles Dickens/Jane Austen movies, and even films about more recent times such as Enemy At The Gates and American Graffiti. If they keep them in their proper time and place (clothing, speech, sets, etc.), I'm glued. (Titanic was almost perfect except for the "Can I bum a smoke" line DiCaprio made after stopping Rose from jumping off the ship).Victoria and Albert caught my attention right off and held it til the end. It not only brought two historical figures to life, but it made them both human, with being vulnerable to human feelings and emotions. One can imagine how Victoria felt when she angrily spoke to her mother as THE QUEEN. One can also imagine how her mother felt being spoken to in that manner by her daughter THE QUEEN. How about Albert's feelings when Victoria poo poo'd him when he would try to help her with her duties, instead giving him a frivolous task to keep him "happy."
I would have liked to have seen more of the relationship that Victoria and Albert had with their children, which was only touched upon and glossed over. Also, it would have been nice to see Victoria's affect first hand on the everyday people of England - her subjects - as she ruled for the majority of the 19th century. After all, a whole period in time was named for her. But that would have increased the time of this movie from four hours to six hours, I'm sure - not that I would have minded.
I feel this is probably the best version out there of these two larger than life figures. A&E, Masterpiece Theater, and others of this ilk always do a marvelous job when it comes to the historical period pieces, and Victoria and Albert is right up there with the best of them. It's well worth the money.