Victoria & Abdul (5 Stars)

Like "The Shape of Water", this is another film from the lower half of my top 200 film list. No insult is intended. These 100 films are all outstanding, in my opinion, and they all deserve to be in the top half. The only problem is that there are even better films. Sometimes I push a film from the bottom half into the top 100 list, usually into the 90's, but I don't do it often. Sometimes I want to add new films to the list, but I don't want to remove any films from the existing list. Like "The Shape of Water", I picked it as an excellent film to "clean my head".

"Victoria & Abdul" is a true story that seems in places so ridiculous that it's impossible to believe. How could the 68-year-old Queen Victoria have feelings of tenderness for a 24-year-old Indian? After watching it in the cinema in 2017 I immediately checked online sources, and the story was verified. Maybe it was dramatized in places, but no lies were told. It's a story that Victoria's son Bertie (Edward VII) tried to hide after he became king in 1901. He evicted Abdul from the house Victoria had given him, and he destroyed all traces of Abdul in the palace. The story was only unearthed in 2010 when Queen Victoria's journals were found, written in Urdu. Shortly afterwards, letters written by Queen Victoria were found in India. It's all a story too strange to be true.

A lot of my friends in England are anti-monarchists. Please don't let that put you off watching the film. It'll make you smile, it'll make you laugh. It shines light on the personal life of one of Britain's longest reigning monarchs.

Success Rate:  + 1.1

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