Having visited the country, India remains for me perhaps the
most fascinating nation in the world.
The people speak more languages and dialects than anyplace else. It is also the home to the most religions. Yet somehow the nation still holds
together. As a republic, it began in
1947. As a people, India goes back
thousands of years.
Throughout much of the 19th and 20th
Centuries, India had to submit to a rule of a much smaller nation. In terms of population, India is twenty times
larger than England. A large portion of
that rule came under the reign of Queen Victoria (Judy Dench). This is the backdrop of the film Victoria & Abdul, a 111-minute film
directed by Stephen Frears.
Unable to travel to India due to a fatwa placed upon her by
an Indian Muslim, Victoria nevertheless was curious about the nation for which is
empress. To the surprise of her entire
staff, she hires as her servant Abdul (Ali Fazal). Abdul is an unusual choice. Against orders and expectations, he looks the
Queen in the eye and kisses her feet in public.
Though outraging Victoria’s staff, the young man makes an impression
upon her. She asks him to teach her
Urdu. Later, upon learning he is a
Muslim, she appoints him as her "munshi," or teacher.
That Victoria lavishes attention upon Abdul particularly
outrages her oldest son, Albert or Bertie (Eddie Izzard), the Prince of Wales
and eventually King Edward VII upon Victoria’s death. Bertie tries to find anything he can use
against Abdul to bring him out of favor with the queen. Mostly, Bertie only succeeds in alienating
himself from his mother. Unfortunately,
Bertie has time on his side to get his revenge.
With Victoria’s health increasingly failing, she tells her
favorite servant, Abdul, that it is best that he, his wife and his wife’s mother
go back to India. She is well aware of
the dangers he will face without her there to protect him. Abdul chooses to stay. His best friend, Mohammed (Adeel Akhtar), who
came to England with Abdul is physically unable to cope with England’s cold
climate – so very different from that in India.
As Mohammed refuses to provide Bertie with any information he can use
against Abdul, Bertie chooses to keep Mohammed in the country to die away from
his homeland.
When Victoria does die, Bertie tries to destroy all
documents and belongings that would show Abdul ever had any connection with the
fallen queen. Abdul, his wife and her
mother then return to India to live out their lives.
Though sometimes sad, Victoria
& Abdul, overall makes for pleasurable if mostly light viewing. There is humor dispersed throughout the
movie, and the two leads generally work well together. It is an example of good storytelling as the
story seldom bogs down.
But like most movies of its kind, its attention is more upon
English royalty than upon the nation England subjects. Steven Frears also directed The Queen that concerned our current
Queen Elizabeth and the remainder of the royal family following the death of
Princess Diana. The topic of royalty
seems to obsess him. And judging by a
recent royal wedding, it is a subject of fascination for a great deal of other
individuals as well. Royalty obsesses
us.
I also question whether the film isn’t historical
revisionism. How accurate is such a
portrayal of the queen when such a story only came to light a century
later. While watching the film, we view
Bertie and the household staff and their prejudices in disdain while not really
understanding that India was under England’s thumb for a long period of
time. This includes the entire Victorian
age. Despite whatever favoritism Abdul
may have actually found with Queen Victoria, he nevertheless remains a servant
to her. I fear that such a historic
lesson is lost upon many of the viewers as well as the film director.
Having said this, Victoria & Abdul remains remains a powerful character study and a worthwhile film to watch. Perhaps Queen Victoria, nearing the end of her life, was tired of the hypocrisy and understood there was no reason not to form a warm and wonderful relationship with her odd and eccentric friend. Judy Dench plays the role powerfully and with singularity. We would hope that all of us would care as little for public opinion under the same circumstances as the character of Victoria does in this film. She represents the best of humanity while her royal staff, full of their own self-regard, remains the absolute worst
May 28, 2018
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