Sunday 08 / September / 2024
“What’s a mango?” It’s one of many pertinent questions Victoria, Queen of Britain and Empress of India asks aloud, as she learns about the exotic world that lies beyond her little island. Few of her fellow Brits are able to answer it, given the attitudes they have towards their colony of India and its subjects, but one person is.
Her munshi, or personal teacher, the very intelligent Abdul, is one of the few people who can tell her about the delicious fruit, much to the disappointment and shock of those around them.
The year is 1887. 30 years after the revolt of 1857, India is now ruled directly under the Crown. To mark three decades of British rule and to celebrate the Queen’s jubilee, Abdul – a prison clerk in the city of Agra, home to the Taj Mahal – is asked to present a specially minted gold coin to Queen Victoria. The reason he’s been selected for this very special journey? He possesses the excellent qualification of being...tall.
Victoria & Abdul is a story that is set around Abdul’s amazing adventures in the royal household, and the supremely powerful woman who made it all happen.
Queen Victoria – played by the excellent Dame Judi Dench (M from the James Bond series of movies, Barbara Covett from Notes on A Scandal, and Armande Voizin from Chocolat, to mention just a few of her amazing works) – is now in her twilight years. Overweight, hard of hearing and arthritic, she’s grown weary of ruling and is now just going through the motions of doing whatever needs to be done to ensure the British Empire, which covers one quarter of the world’s surface, runs itself.
Her courtiers and prime minister plot behind her back, using her for their own personal gain, and into this world of backstabbing, political games and subterfuge, is thrown Abdul, a breath of fresh air in her otherwise stuffy courtroom. Initially tasked with merely presenting her with the coin, the queen – an excellent judge of character – sees something in him that the sycophants around her seem to lack, and asks him to be her attendant for the rest of the jubilee celebrations.
After presenting the royal dessert to the queen, in a show of admiration and respect, Abdul kisses her feet in front of everyone, a move which shocks those around him (not because he’s kissed her feet, but because he’s Indian). While those who are seated beside the queen splutter with anger and rage, she is quite charmed by his devotion, and asks him to be her personal footman.
What happens after that date with destiny is a journey that changes both Queen Victoria, Empress of India, and Abdul, a lowly prison clerk, forever. Abdul initially instructs her in the ways of the Holy Quran, being fully versed in the Holy Book, before going on to teach her Urdu, the courtly language of the Mughals, the dynasty that ruled India before the British became the primary power in the Indian subcontinent.
Abdul serves as her conduit into understanding the largest of Britain’s colonies, and provides her with an education far richer than one she could ever receive. While Queen Victoria moves quickly to appoint him his personal teacher, and even brings over his family from India, that an Indian is now a most loved member of the Royal household is one that rubs almost everyone in the palace the wrong way. Everyone associated with the queen, from the prime minister, to her seamstress, to her personal physician and even her cook, plots to shame Abdul, who, truth be told, has done nothing wrong, a fact Victoria can clearly see.
With some brilliant acting, amazing scenes and jaw-droppingly stunning camera work, Victoria and Abdul, based on the novel by Indian author Shrabani Basu, is a movie that will take you down a memory lane many of us thought never even existed, until very, very recently.
The Short and Skinny
Name: Victoria and Abdul
Genre: History/comedy/drama
Produced by: BBC Films, Perfect World Pictures, Working Title Films, Cross Street Films
What it’s about: With Britain’s colonial power at its peak, Queen Victoria’s power knows no limits, and her courtiers go to no end to appease her. At her latest jubilee celebration, an Indian man is unwittingly thrown into the intricacies of the Royal Court...
Starring: Judi Dench, Ali Fazal, Michael Gambon, Eddie Izzard, Adeel Akhtar, Paul Higgins, Olivia Williams, Tim Pigott-Smith, Fenella Woolgar
Where to watch: Amazon, iTunes, SBS, various streaming sites
Runtime: 111 minutes
IMDB Rating: 6.8/10
