Vic­to­ria & Abdul

Dur­ing the last 15 years of her life Queen Vic­to­ria found com­pan­ion­ship with an Indi­an ser­vant named Abdul Karim. He caught her eye at the Gold­en Jubilee cel­e­bra­tions of 1887, cut­ting an appeal­ing fig­ure in court and mak­ing her all a‑quiver when he kissed her feet in admiration.

The Queen nick­named Abdul her Mun­shi (a Per­sian term for sec­re­tary), and as their rela­tion­ship devel­oped, the pair spent many hours togeth­er writ­ing in jour­nals and learn­ing one another’s native tongue. His pho­to hung just below that of anoth­er faith­ful ser­vant, John Brown, and though he was held in high esteem by the Queen, lav­ished with var­i­ous awards and hon­ours, her house­hold con­tin­u­al­ly tried to dis­cred­it him.

Their fas­ci­nat­ing and ten­der rela­tion­ship is cap­tured with charm and humour in this love­ly new fea­ture. Direc­tor Stephen Frears and screen­writer Lee Hall blend the bureau­crat­ic hys­te­ria of polit­i­cal sit­com The Thick of It with the light-heart­ed­ness and sen­ti­ment of films such as Philom­e­na or the Mum­bai-set rom-com, The Lunch­box.

Judi Dench repris­es her role as Queen Vic­to­ria (one she last played in Mrs Brown some 20 years ago) and Ali Fazal’s eyes twin­kle with the milk of human kind­ness as her loy­al con­fi­dante. The film­mak­ers note that, even though this is based on a true sto­ry and adapt­ed from a book writ­ten by Shra­bani Basu, they do take some artis­tic license with the telling.

The film doesn’t sug­ar­coat the phys­i­cal con­di­tion of the Queen in her lat­er years – the view­er wit­ness­es her squishy, still snor­ing body being rolled out of bed by her staff ahead of a strict régime of respon­si­bil­i­ties and offi­cial meet­ings. In the ear­ly stages of the film, Dench plays her as a com­mand­ing woman on autopi­lot, still griev­ing at the death of her hus­band and the rela­tion­ship with John Brown still weigh­ing heav­i­ly on her mind. She’s almost grey in appear­ance. Yet the Queen’s friend­ship with the Mun­shi flour­ish­es and Dench builds a mis­chie­vous, spark­ly warmth and scathing wit into her Victoria.

Sur­round­ed by a pha­lanx of arro­gant off­spring and toad­y­ing sta ers, the Queen’s unhap­pi­ness is eased by the pres­ence of her Mun­shi. Eddie Izzard plays Bertie, Prince of Wales, as a spoiled, jeal­ous child who is hun­gry for pow­er. The household’s opu­lent feasts, ingrained snob­bery and open­ly racist atti­tudes are cru­el, and are parad­ed as such. No one gets off light­ly, as even Victoria’s more frilly behav­iour is called out dur­ing a singing ses­sion with Gia­co­mo Puc­ci­ni (Simon Cal­low) and Abdul’s ambi­tion and love for British cul­ture takes prece­dence over his Indi­an heritage.

The lone­li­ness of lat­er life and the depres­sion it brings with it, as explored recent­ly in Bill Condon’s Mr Holmes, is touched upon but there is an air of pom­pos­i­ty when Vic­to­ria con­fides to Abdul, ​“We are all pris­on­ers.” It’s fair to exam­ine how Victoria’s stand­ing in life left her feel­ing iso­lat­ed but it’s a naïve leap too far to com­pare the life of impov­er­ished men forced to leave their home­land and work for the Empress of India to her priv­i­leged lifestyle.

For the most part, though, Frears and co poke fun at the monar­chy and do a decent job at pre­sent­ing the com­plex rela­tion­ship between India and England.