The Young Victoria

Historically - as far as the cinema is concerned - Queen Victoria was born well into her seventies. Rarely has anyone tried to depict her early years and sadly, this is a rather shallow attempt so to do. Emily Blunt portrays the Queen with some fortitude but the rather soppy performances from Rupert Friend and Paul Bettany don't give us anything like a proper comprehension of the struggle she had, as a (young) woman, to establish herself at the head of an empire riddled with chauvinism, ambition and pomposity. Miranda Richardson as her mother takes up some of the slack in this lacklustre effor...