The Young Victoria (2009)

In a small way, Jean-Marc Vallée's The Young Victoria is the movie that Sophia Coppola thought she was making with Marie Antoinette. Both tell stories of young, independent-minded, and head-strong royals thrust to the throne when they were perhaps too young to rule. Of course, Kirsten Dunst's Antoinette was a naïve twit caught up in circumstances beyond her control, and Emily Blunt's Victoria is anything but. Nonetheless, both movies have a rock 'n' roll vibe to match their protagonist's youth and enthusiasm. With Coppola, it's literally the soundtrack, but Vallée somehow got it to pump through Blunt's veins.

Though it takes her uncle's (a delightfully loopy Jim Broadbent) death to break her free from her mother (Miranda Richardson) and her mother's comptroller's (Mark Strong) shackles, Blunt's Victoria is a passionate, sparkling, and willful queen, not at all what we've come to associate with the royal we. When Prime Minister Lord Melbourne (Paul Bettany) sets out to pull her under his spell, you almost worry for him.

Victoria, you see, has only one love, and it's the swooniest, most romantic love affair committed to celluloid in years. Victoria's cousin, Albert (Rupert Friend), is coached to win Victoria's heart at the behest of his uncle, King Leopold of Belgium (Thomas Kretschmann), but chafes at the notion. Shortly after meeting her, he stumbles in his charade and decides to try being himself instead. It works in no small part because Friend as Albert is one of the handsomest creatures you could ever lay eyes on. He's announced as His Serene Highness, and Friend took the cue for his performance from that title. Instead of a smouldering sex appeal meant to draw Victoria in like a magnet (surely what Melbourne had planned), Friend exudes intelligence, patience, and serenity, on the likes of which you could build a lifetime of love. Blunt and Friend glow when they are together.

Though screenwriter Julian Fellowes (who also gave us the glorious Gosford Park) takes some liberties with the history, he's also created one of the richest, most rewarding romances ever. The movie around them doesn't always shine the way they do, and its chess metaphor is a little too spelled out, but oh, well. The idea that Victoria had Albert's clothes laid out every day after his early death at the age of 42 used to strike me as daft, but now it's heartbreaking. A-