ViewGuide

Created Dec 11, 2011 02:29AM PST • Edited Dec 23, 2011 12:29PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Few royalty movies reign more regally than Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown. Dame Judy Dench is magnificent as Queen Victoria, essaying the Empress of India right after she’d lost her Prince Albert. Director John Madden’s third picture includes Billy Connolly’s rollicking good performance as Scottish hunting guide John Brown, Prince Albert’s former main man … who went on to engage his dead friend’s wife.

   Interloper Brown came to rule the Castle … Balmoral Castle. Storybook Balmoral is rendered outstandingly well, reason enough to view this great movie.

   Random Notes

   • “Not too near!” The final line stands as the quintessential Victorian statement.
   • Who says a man and woman can’t be friends, especially when the woman is Queen Victoria, inconsolable widow and archetype of sexual repression. No consummation risk there.
   • Victoria’s gifts included India, Australia and two suitors of great worth: Prince Albert and Scottish Highlander John Brown. That pretty much made her the most fortunate woman in human history.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Never mind Dame Judy Dench and Billy Connolly, Mrs. Brown introduced Gerard Butler to the movies. Cartoon Dramas and Romantic Comedies would never be the same.

   Billy Connolly – the legendary hitman from The Boondock Saints – has the role of a lifetime as stalwart Scotsman John Brown.

   Gerard Butler, looking young and awkward, plays his younger brother Archie Brown. Really. Sparta’s King Leonidas would come six years and a heavy layer of animation later.

   Dame Judy perfectly inhabits the most consequential woman of the 19th Century. An Oscar nomination followed.

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    John Madden directing a Jeremy Brock script about England’s greatest latter-day monarch is a recipe for British Greatness.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

    John Madden’s third film: a year later he made Shakespeare in Love. This year he released The Debt, another really great movie. Guess that makes him a really great director.

12. Play Great 4.0

    Ultra-Brit Jeremy Brock turned in an excellent piece of work.

13. Music Great 4.0

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.6

    Wonder where Victorian thinking came from? Here.

17. Sex Innocent 1.2

18. Violence Fierce 1.8

19. Rudeness Salty 1.8

21. Reality

    Glib 1.1

    Gotta take the CircoReality up to 1.1 ‘cause most of the dialog was long since lost to history, so Brock must’ve made it up. BioReality speaks to the use of stuntmen.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.1

23. Biological Glib 1.2

24. Physical Natural 1.0