Victoria and Abdul

Directed By: Stephen FrearsWritten By: Lee Hall (based on the book Victoria and Abdul by Shrabani Basu)Starring: Judi Dench, Ali Fazal, Eddie Izzard, Adeel Akhtar, Michael Gambon

On an innocuous day in 1887, a

seemingly random Indian clerk was suddenly whisked away to London to participate in the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations. His name was Abdul Kareem, and he was to merely present her majesty with a commemorative coin before seamlessly retreating into some far corner of the palace. “Don’t make eye contact with her!” Adbul is belligerently instructed by the Queen’s chief courtier. But when the moment comes, eyes do meet, a slight smile is made, and Abdul Kareem lands at the centre of the Queen’s platonic affections, where he’s to remain for the next 13 years.

It’s a cute and pleasant tale of unlikely companionship at the heart of Victoria and Abdul, one which director Stephen Frears embraces with a great sense of romance and larkish goodwill. It didn’t have to be that way though. The friendship, it isn’t a spoiler to say, found itself under great strain from the start, Abdul’s lowly, in the eyes of the British, Muslim status viewed as a protruding blemish on the Royal household. Indeed, Victoria and Abdul’s comradery was eventually stricken from the record books completely, filed away in some forgotten cabinet where it was to remain for over a century until journals were uncovered in 2010, finally bringing it to light. That Stephen Frears remains so unsoured by this note, that he remains so resolute in his pleasantness, is both Victoria and Abdul’s allure, and downfall. On one hand, the film is so effortlessly palatable in its benevolence, breezing by with hardly an utterance. On the other, Frears’ incessant goodwill gives way to glibness, signalling a lack of desire to ask questions of his characters and truly study them, less his story take more viewer-taxing turns into drama.

The film immediately settles into a pattern of fluffy, broad-stroked exchanges, pivoting between jaunty vignettes of amiability between Abdul (Ali Fazal), and Victoria (it seems almost redundant to say, Judi Dench), and bouts of pompous Brits turning their noses up at the Royal House’s newest tenant. It begins with comedy, Victoria arriving on the scene as some sloth like mass. She’s clothed by her servants as she embarks on a journey to keep her eyes open, and in the elaborate dining hall, she huffs down an ornate lunch in front of all manner high ranking British citizens like a starved pig would scraps.

Once Abdul comes along, the film busies itself with upbeat sequences in which the Queen learns of Abdul’s native land, the Indian educating his Empress on all matters of his home—from the origins of the Taj mahal to the deliciousness of mango chutney; from the complex tapestries involved in the making of a carpet, to the language of Urdu; smiles, assuredly, always adorned. Soon Abdul has been promoted from glorified waiter, tasked with transporting lavish, teetering Royal jellies (the closest the film comes to touching on the volatility of British/Indian relations), to the Queen’s Munshi (a spiritual adviser and right-hand of sorts), taking residence in the palace alongside his own right-hand, fellow Indian Mohammad (Adeel Akhtar, offering furthering comedic relief as a restless fish-out-of-water type.)

On the other side of the coin is Eddie Izzard’s Bertie (the eventual King Edward VII), leading the charge for the stuck-up Brits and various Royal courtiers, lambasting his mother as having grown senile, attempting to veer her away from Abdul at every turn, less the Royal house be denigrated by a Muslim presence. “She’ll be wearing a burqa next” Michael Gambon’s Lord Salisbury worries as he leaves the company of the two titular characters.

The advantage of a broad-stroked approach from Frears and screenwriter Lee Hallis, is that the film easily strikes populist notes, opting to evade the murky colonialist politics which encompass the central relationship in order to achieve something light, palatable, and anchored in a timeless thesis: it’s the content of one’s character that defines their worth, not their ethnicity nor beliefs.

The downside is one can’t shake the feeling that Victoria and Abdul is a film that might have been better suited to the one-hour confines of a television special, where its foraging for something to truly say mightn’t have been so apparent. It occurs to one quickly and regularly that Frears’ quixotism and British snobbery are more padding to stretch the narrative to a feature length, than salient action.

There are intermittent moments of emotional heft, scenes which fall invariably on the shoulders of Ms Dench who, without exception, is up to the task. Commanding and earnest by equal measure, locating the human in a figure so easily mythologised, Judi Dench truly understands Victoria; this is, after all, a sequel of sorts, following very much in the footsteps of Mr Brown in which Dench played the same Monarch. When Victoria expresses the cost of isolation tethered to the role of Queen, when she resolutely stands by her Munshi and convictions, one sees glimmers of the vitality that might have been. That one never fully trusts the screenplay’s political outlook (Victoria is suspiciously ignorant of England’s whole presence in India, which does wonders for her ability to be sympathetic, but smacks of historical revision), is a concession that simply must be made if one is to tap into the scant emotional heart of the piece at all.

Fazal is afforded even fewer opportunities than Dench to burrow into the depths of his character. The extent of Abdul’s personality is that he is amicable and charming, two traits which the performer is sure to render, but which never materialise into three dimensions. One can’t help but feel there are greater complexities to Abdul to be unearthed—this is a man who warmly embraces the head of the empire that has incessantly belittled his nation, a character whose motivations beg many questions yet herald few answers. One, for example, can’t help but tinker with the notion that Abdul might be using the Queen for purposes of social climbing— we know that he isn’t entirely forthcoming regarding his true backstory. But Frears never braces these questions, not to indulge them, nor to dispel them; odd, given if he did it would lend the drama much-needed clout. Instead, Frears is content to take it all at face value, less he jeopardise his sentimental sensibility.

The whole thing, in the end, is rather coy; ostensibly kind, but liable to collapse under the scrutiny of viewers more curious about the central duo. It’s odd, given the probing curiosities Stephen Frears himself has demonstrated with the Royals prior, Oscar nominated for his work on 2006’s The Queen in which he sympathetically but truthfully picked apart Elizabeth II’s decision making under crisis (the death of Diana). Victoria and Abdul, by contrast, is rather like one of those ornate Royal jellies: effortless to swallow; easy to the eye; inherently flimsy.

Rating:

2.5/4