MOVIE - Victoria & Abdul

PG-13 (1:51)

Wide release 10/6/17

Viewed Sunday, 10/15/17 at Gettysburg Majestic with Claudia

IMBd: 6.9/10

RT Critic:  68  Audience:  72
Critic's Consensus:  Critics Consensus: Victoria & Abdul reunites Dame Judi Dench with the role of Queen Victoria -- which is all this period drama needs to overcome its imbalanced narrative.

Cag:  6/Awesome  5/Loved it  4/Liked it a lot  3/Liked it  2/It was okay  1/Didn’t like it

Directed by Stephen Frears

Focus Features

Based at least partly on a true story, which the Brits hid for many years!

Actors:  Judi Dench, Ali Fazal (and Dumbledore plays the Prime Minister of England!)

My comments:  While watching, although I'd heard that this story is based on fact, I wondered how much.  After getting home I did a little research, and was delighted to find that at least some of the story is based on fact.  The humor included, whether real or not, was excellent.  I discovered that Abdul spends over 10 years with Queen Victoria.  I wish the movie had showed this much passage of time more effectively.  Judi Dench ROCKS!  Ali Fazal, who plays Abdul, is apparently a Bollywood star.  He did a really good job with the role, I enjoyed very much watching his expressive face.  One reviewer summed it up pretty well....it's how joy and humanity are combined that makes it.  How much you think is real and how much is fake is up to the beholder.  It's a good movie no matter which it is!  Recommended.

RT/ IMDb Summary:  The extraordinary true story of an unexpected friendship in the later years of Queen Victoria's (Academy Award winner Judi Dench) remarkable rule. When Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal), a young clerk, travels from India to participate in the Queen's Golden Jubilee, he is surprised to find favor with the Queen herself. As the Queen questions the constrictions of her long-held position, the two forge an unlikely and devoted alliance with a loyalty to one another that her household and inner circle all attempt to destroy. As the friendship deepens, the Queen begins to see a changing world through new eyes and joyfully reclaims her humanity.

48. The Case of the Missing Marquess - Nancy Springer

Enola Holmes Mystery #1
Philomel Books, 2006
$10.99
216 pgs
Rating: 4
Grades 5-8

Enola Holmes is one cool 14 year-old. She lives with her elderly mother on an estate outside London. And one day, on Enola's 14th birthday, her mother disappears. Her two older brothers come from London to take over Enola's future. And one of those brothers is Sherlock Holmes. Their decision is to make a lady out of her, and to send her to boarding school. She knows this cannot let this happen.

Her mother has left her two books. One is a cipher book that she had created herself, the other a book of flowers. Enola discovers that her mother has left her messages in the ciphers. She has also left her lots and lots of hidden bank notes. But the biggest gift that she has given her is a great sense of independence. So on the day that she is to be transported to boarding school she hatches an ingenious plan, disguises herself, and sets off for the rest of her life. And that is NOT going to be boarding school! On the way she stumbles upon a mystery (an apparently kidnapped rich kid), which she solves with no problem. And at the end of the book, setting us for many books to follow, we find her becoming Ivy Meshle, secretary to the unseen Dr. Leslie T. Ragostin, a famous scientific perditorian. And what is a perditorian? In Enola's words, a "knower of the lost, wise woman of the lsot, finder of the lost."

There are lots of references to Victorian England that might be tough for some kids to understand. Creating a glossary for these references would be something cool to create while reading.

The writing is quite, quite nice, though some of it might be difficult for kids that have a tough time reading:

"My brothers lived here? In this -- this grotesque brick-and-stone parody of any world I had known? With so many chimney-pots and roof-peaks looming dark against a lurid, vaporous orange sky? Lead-coloured clouds hung low while the setting sun oozed molten light between them; the Gothic towers of the city stood festive yet foreboding against that glowering sky, like candles on the Devil's birthday cake. I stared until I grew aware of hordes of indifferent city-dwellers brushing pst me, going about their business. Then I took a deep abreath, closed my mouth, swallowed, and turned my back to this curiously ominous sunset."