Victoria & Abdul
PG cert, 112 min Stephen Frears’s film is ablaze with historical import and contemporary resonance, reduced down to commemorative biscuit tin proportions.
You’ll find an expectedly sensational performance from Judi Dench, but almost nothing for the actress to push against – least of all Abdul, a fawning blank slate, though the pair’s early scenes do have an amicable thrum and snap.
While Victoria is sharply attuned to her advancing years, she’s also oddly naive, with fairly improbable progressive views for the sake of easy karma. You really want to see Dench as Victoria unairbrushed – she would have
been more than up to the task. The attitudes of the time are conveniently offloaded on to members of the royal household, making the second half a corridors tampeding farce, as the courtiers try to stitch up Abdul (Ali Fazal) in whichever way they can.
They’re an appealing bunch, cast-wise: Paul Higgins is briskly funny as Victoria’s physician, Olivia Williams winningly aloof as Baroness Churchill, Eddie Izzard uncannily Tim Curry-like as the scheming Prince of Wales. But their impatience with Abdul is easier to sympathise with than it’s probably supposed to be: Abdul becomes annoying because the film gives him a genial glow instead of a character, and banks on you not noticing.