Victoria & Abdul

The Twinkly Eyed Fazal

The " true" story of the 81 year old monarch's "friendship" with her Indian man servant/teacher Abdul Karin is perhaps less well known than her attachment to the brash John Brown but under director Steven Frears' guiding hand the film is a gently comic romp into the absurdities of the Victorian British Royal family and their horror at having a matriarch who is suddenly dependent on a Muslim of lowly birth.
Frears hints that Victoria ( Judi Dench) had a roving eye for the magnificent Karin (Ali Fazal) but he bottles it slightly bigging up the sweetness and the intellectual nature of their friendship rather than to acknowledge the possible fact that the handsome clerk come Guru was in fact an opportunistic manipulator who landed on his feet before a lonely, silly old Queen sick of an arse licking court.
Personally I thought that the real story story lay more with the more pessimistic version of the truth rather than the sanitized take  and the whole thing left me with rather a sour taste in my mouth, which was disappointing.
Dench is wonderful as Victoria and I must say that the whole film builds to a classic Judi moment , when the old Queen faces off her son Berti ( Eddie Izzard) with a bravura speech that she is indeed not insane in befriending a native! ... , so much so that I can see another Oscar nomination on the cards.
Fazal is cute as a button in his, slightly more difficult role but the cuteness does fade when one questions that the friendship was one less wholesome than originally portrayed.
6/10

30 comments:

  1. Oh I would love to see this !

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He was Muslim ...his wife was in a burka

      Delete
    2. Yes I commented too soon. I looked him up. Seems he was a Muslim. The turban is shown in his portraits. I should look things up first, sorry.
      lizzy

      Delete
  3. I have seen previews of this movie and would love to see it. I think you are probably right as to your assessment of the relationship. But still- what a story!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well i'am a little dismayed at the bug you put in my ear about all not being what it seemed... I was so looking forward to this movie and its sweetness.. I will still watch it i think and hopefully it will be as sweet as i hoped... Hugs! deb

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks for the review, John. I've put it in my Netflix queue.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I've seen the previews and have decided that I would like to see it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. You have nailed something about movies that stopped me from going to them - so many that we get here are fluff; even ones based on real life where the best story would have been the truth but the movie version is sanitized, for what reason I do not understand. Maybe for mass distribution? I don't know.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'll be seeing this in next day or two, though a number of people, not just you, have put a dampner over it. I was aware of the relationship and thought it especially ugly on learning how the young man was brusquely cast out after Q Vic's passing. Nonetheless, I'm still curious to see the cinema treatment of the story.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I really want to see this film. I assumed that the story has been sanitised to suit the court but I only assumed a sexual relationship had been airbrushed out, it never occurred to me that he was a manipulator!
    How naive

    ReplyDelete
  10. Congratulations to Frears for having brought this 'hidden' saga to the attention of us commoners. A wee snippet of Victorian life that otherwise most of us would never have known about.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Not in a million years would any of this story be true. She was far too devoted to Albert, in life and death, to ever seek the attentions of others, particularly those of 'lowly birth'.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thanks for the review I look forward to going.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I will see it this week so I didn't read.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I saw Judi Dench and Ali Fazal interviewed together on The One Show, they had a lovely chemistry which I'm sure Dench has with most of her co- actors.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I am really looking forward to this. I am intrigued. Whatever the truth was it is a good story.:)

    ReplyDelete
  16. I just saw an ad for this movie and was wondering about it. Thanks for your take on it John.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Saw a most beguiling clip of the film. Oh, yes, don't I recognize the attraction - and I ain't 81; neither am I Queen Victoria.

    I don't think historical "truth" matters - if it's not a documentary. It's a good story - and that's what all of us want round the campfire, at bedtime, on the big screen (and, of course, on your blog, John) - a good story, well told. Facts are overrated, and after a few decades around I'd say few truths and facts of any of us and our innermost will ever be "really" known by others. And so it should be. A bit of mystery goes a long way. I am already turning in my grave.

    U

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for this Ursula... it is a story... a work of fiction not a documentary...and i hope its a sweet one.......... deb

      Delete
  18. It opens here next week and I have been looking foreword to seeing it. As long as there are no guns, explosions, aliens, or zombies, I'm in.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Interesting that the story is still so little known. I've known about it for about as long as the John Brown saga, my awareness of both pre-dating the Billy Connolly film by some years. Yet it seems that from some comments above, even now there are those who refuse to believe that an Abdul tale like this could ever really have happened. Granted that here it will have been cinema-tised for profit (and 'palatability' to some), but I doubt if ALL the historic sources I've read could have been in error.

    ReplyDelete
  20. If Judi Dench is in it then it's good. Although that didn't work with the Robert De Niro film I watched. Or was it Al Pacino?

    ReplyDelete
  21. I think anyone who is a "royal" and has to be perfect all the time, should not be judged too harshly when they do something so human as love someone.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Judi Dench is far too pretty to portray Queen Victoria.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Looking forward to this.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Looking forward to this.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Although that didn't work with the Robert De Niro film I watched. Or was it Al Pacino?


    หีฟิต

    ReplyDelete
  26. We saw this last night .... and gave it an 8/10. Maybe just because it was so much better than all the bloody Marvel films we've been to see recently 😉

    ReplyDelete

I love all comments Except abusive ones from arseholes