The Young Victoria

I just finished watching this movie. 

Here's what it's about: 

  Princess Victoria is turning eighteen and is the only heir to the English throne, so everyone wants to have some influence over her before she even ascends the throne.

Her mom wants to be the regent (a ruler in place of the monarch in cases where the monarch is incapable or too young to rule) and so keeps her away from the throne. She is treated like a golden bird in a cage and her mom's advisor threatens her and tries to force her to sign the regency papers. She meets Prince Albert, who is a distant cousin and nephew to the King of Belgium. He's been brought up to one day marry her.
Knows all about her favourite songs, operas, books, etc. She is not impressed by him till he shows signs of having some individual opinion of his own. Her uncle, the king, dies and she now wears the crown. Her new found freedom goes to her head a little and she makes the mistake of trusting one of her advisers to influence her decisions too much. 

When the prince asks to be of service (his way of declaring his feelings, since he cant propose to the queen- she has to do the proposing) she sends him away politely saying, 'not yet.' She thinks she has everything in hand.

A stupid decision topples her government and people revolt.
She realises how alone she is and asks Albert to come back and then asks him to marry her. They are happy at first, then Albert begins to feel like the poor husband of a rich woman, with no certain duties of his own. Victoria is too afraid to be controlled by him, so she keeps him out of her decision-making. He takes matters into his own hands, Victoria is incensed. They go out in a carriage, still angry with each other, when a mad man shoot at her and he takes the bullet for her by pushing her back in time. 

Albert gains the respect of her advisers and she realises how scared she is to lose him and that he did care about her more than his own interests.

He recovers and she allows them to become equals and together they rule England for twenty years and have 9 children!

Here's what I think:

  It's a love story, plain and simple, amidst the turbulence of a change of power and the wariness and distrust that shadows inexperience in a position of power. 

Victoria grew up knowing that her own mother wished to use her to gain power over the throne and even allowed another to manipulate, control and threaten her. She dreamt of the freedom the crown would bring her, but even in the Queen's palace she didn't know whom to trust. At just eighteen she was stubborn, proud and somewhat naive about the motives of those she trusted. 

Albert was sent to her by his uncle so that he could woo her, marry her and then help the Belgian king from behind her throne. He did his duty at first but he fell in love and by the time they married, he had every intention of helping her rule as faithfully as he could and not act as a spy for his uncle.

They were both wonderful! I liked this even better than Helen Mirren's The Queen and have decided to start collecting movies on the English, European and eastern royal families. Should make quite a collection. Unfortunately I'm all too aware that very few of them would be love stories and even less would end happily and with lingering notes of hope playing at the closing.