Word: alberts
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...process for The Young Victoria, demanding that she be played by "that clever girl from The Devil Wears Prada." And her edict would have been wise, because Emily Blunt is utterly charming in this dramatization of the young Victoria's ascension to the throne and her courtship with Prince Albert...
...hands of director Jean-Marc Vallee and screenwriter Julian Fellowes, The Young Victoria adheres - mostly - to history. It's romanticized, with Victoria's beloved Albert (Rupert Friend) a more eager suitor than history indicates. And the movie may give British political scholars fits, because Lord Melbourne, the 58-year-old Prime Minister who coached Victoria in politics and queenly affairs, is played here by the dashing and quite youthful Paul Bettany, excising 20 years and at least as many pounds from Lord M.'s real person. (See the top 10 movie performances...
...really much source of tension: once she's Queen, she's the boss. Nor are Lord M. or Lehzen, even though they try to manipulate the young Queen, because this is primarily a love story. It certainly has sturdy roots: Victoria ruled for 63 years and adored Albert so much that she wore black for the 40 years she was widowed. (It's believed in some quarters that she did find love again, with manservant John Brown, but that's a different movie, called Mrs. Brown...
...Victoria in Dover). Victoria left ample and surprisingly intimate diaries, as well as her sketchbooks, which provided evidence of her platonic infatuation with Lord M. (she mostly got misty-eyed over the idea of him as a young man) and her nearly instantaneous attraction to her cousin Albert, whom she described as "extremely handsome ... he has a beautiful nose and a very sweet mouth" - which is certainly true of Friend...
...perhaps in deference to the contemporary audience's desire to see Victoria as a Queen shaping her own destiny, the movie tilts the balance of romantic power somewhat, giving us a Victoria gradually won over by Albert's attentions. He grumbles to his brother about the political nature of the courtship ("What do you say about a man who waits for a rich woman?"), but he's soon got the mushy look of a man more than ready to fulfill his duty. The suggestion is that he'll offer her an alliance of equals. Discussing the subject of husbands...