"I'm 81 years old. I have 9 children, 42 grandchildren, nearly a billion subjects. I have rheumatism, a prolapsed uterus, I am overly bloated, and deaf in one ear. I have met 11 prime ministers and signed 2,347 articles. Act, in power for 62 years and 234 days. I am the longest reigning monarch, responsible for 5 royal families and more than 3000 employees. I am bad-tempered, boring, gluttonous and fat, irritable and selfish and short-sighted. So. I'm disgustingly dictatorial, nothing, but I'm not insane! If the whole royal family wants to disobey me then come, come face to face. I'll be waiting for you in the audience room right away."
Adapted from royal anecdotes unearthed by a female journalist, "Victoria & Abdul" tells the story of Queen Victoria's personal friendship with an Indian valet at the end of her reign, the 29th year that India officially became the Queen's crown jewel. , is also the peak of the British Empire. What is thrown away is historical facts and how much is not a joke, except for the self-deprecating humor in the bones of the British and the sighs and thoughts of nostalgia for the glory of the past. No one is willing to truly listen to and understand the loneliness in their hearts. This dilemma is something we all will fall into sooner or later. The emergence of Abdul has become a safe haven for the Queen's personal emotions. Her tiredness of the long life, her fragility and willfulness, her numbness and loss in her duties, and her mourning for Albert and John Brown, are finally able to The "one person" approach relieves.
In addition to this main line, what makes me sigh is Abdul's Indian companion, a cold-humored character who is reluctant from the beginning on this shameful journey from India to Britain to "fuck the colonizers". In his eyes, the British Empire that leads the world is nothing but an "uncivilized place" that "eats pig's blood". He doesn't want to be "frozen to death" in a sinful foreign land. He bluntly tells that an empire stands at the top, which means that what can be seen here is also visible. Only downhill. And his death also changed the tone of the whole film from the sunshine on the Isle of Wight, which carries the Queen's beautiful memory, to the endless sadness under the snow. The sadness left to the audience at the end of the film is that what we see is not only the curtain call of a queen and the elegy played by a big country, but the farewell of two ordinary souls who sympathize with each other.
This film is not a particularly good work from a movie point of view. If the over-beautification of the queen's personality can be restrained, it will be more realistic and objective. The flatness of the character Abdul also makes the story lose its thickness, but the film allows us to see The inevitable process of "aging old", we should all prepare for this destined kind of "desolation".
View more about Victoria & Abdul reviews
