Victoria and Abdul - movie

Seen 9/30/2017

Victoria and Abdul is a story that we have seen told many times.  In essence, an interloper arrives in a location where he does not belong, manages to charm a key member of the population, the rest of the population is unhappy, and difficulties ensure.   This is the great weakness and in many ways the great the strength of the film.

In this case the interlope is Abdul Karim played by Ali Fazel.  The key member of the population is Queen Victoria played by Judy Dench.   Abdul arrives from India to deliver a ceremonial coin.    He is instructed never to make eye contact with the Queen.   He can’t help himself and does and a relationship begins that is the heart of the movie.    Because we know the basic framework of the story of the interloper, there are few surprises.  Everything happens more or less as we expect it to.  The Queen grows more charmed by Abdul causing ever more disquiet among the people around the Queen.   Eddie Izzard as Bertie, Michael Gambon as the Prime Minister, and others all evince appropriate horror at the rise of Abdul in Victoria’s court.   Mr. Izzard and Mr Gambon represent the epitome of British Rule.  Their only concern is to keep order and ensure the vast British realm hold together, regardless of the impact those they rule.   There reactions are entirely expected and predictable.  Mr. Izzard and Mr. Gambon capably pull of the required huffing and puffing that is required of their characters, but that is really all there is for them to play.   There is very little individuality to any of these characters.   They are merely there to serve as a chorus expressing horror at the situation unfolding around them.   It feels a bit like a play out of ancient Greece.   The chorus leader, in the form of Bertie, leads a chorus whose sole purpose is to express opinion on the events going on around them.    The central characters ignore them and do what they want.  The individuality of the chorus members is irrelevant.     Because all of this is expected the success of the movie rises and falls on the performances of the central characters.

Judy Dench is a marvel as Queen Victoria.  At the start of the film, we are presented with a monarch who is old and tired.  She has to be dragged out of bad and then goes through the motions of her royal duties without engaging in them.  Ms. Dench, without saying a word, shows us the sadness, weariness, and disengagement of this Queen with her world.   Then, she makes a connection with Abdul and Victoria slowly comes back to life takes command of her world again.    Ms. Dench gives us a Queen rediscovering joy, rediscovering her need to act the monarch, and blooming into a full human being again as she eases into the last years of her life.   She gives us a Queen who is monarch to a large realm, who relishes her titles while remaining clueless to what that means for the people living under the oppression that is British rule.   It is a remarkable performance full of wit, fire, and passion that carries all the necessary traits of royalty while revealing a very human and frail person underneath.    This is a Queen that we understand rules over us absolutely while still allowing us to identify completely with her very real human needs and desires.

Ali Fazel gives an Abdul who, at first is bewildered by what has happened to him, then grows in authority as he rises in the court.   His Abdul is a person who wins his way into the Queens heart with humor and a sort of serene joy that the Queen sorely needs.    He stands toe-to-toe with Ms. Dench and makes us understand exactly why the Queen would have been drawn to him.    Mr. Fazel makes us understand that Abdul sees that he is fulfilling some deep need of the Queen and that he more than willing to do it.   Together these two actors forge a deep bond between their characters.    That we feel the intensity of this bond is key because we have to believe in its strength in order to accept that the Queen would ignore the demands of court and her own best interests, when the revelations about Abdul begin to emerge, and fight to keep the relationship to the end of her life.  It is a tribute to both these actors that in the end, when the Queen lays dying, that we feel their connection so strongly that we know that Abdul is the only person who can provide the peace she needs to let go and the only one form whom she can accept permission to let go.   That this film is so good is due to the strength of their performances.

I would be remiss if I did not mention Adeel Ahktar as Mohammad.  Mohammed is the other man sent to deliver the coin and ends up stuck in England.  Mr. Ahkater gives a wonderfully realized portrait of a man wanting to go home, suffering from the cold, and still with the spine and dignity to refuse the chance to go home when it requires betraying Abdul.    The performance is at times comic relief and at times noble.    He gives the sole window into the Indian pain and frustration and not being in control of their own destiny either individually or as a part of an English colony.   He injects a much needed dose of reality into what is meant by the Queen’s title of Empress of India.  A title she takes much joy in without any real understanding of what it means to those she rules.

Victoria and Abdul is very worth seeing, if for no other reason than to witness another amazing performance by Judy Dench.