Victoria the Great: Stiff Upper Lips and Actually Good Chemistry

Is this thing worth your time?

If you like old-school Hollywood biographies that don't try to be too clever, you'll probably dig this. It’s perfect for a rainy Sunday when you want something that moves at its own steady pace.

However, if you need your historical dramas to be gritty, modern, or full of cynical twists, you might find this one a bit too polite. It’s earnest. Like, really earnest.

Anna Neagle is doing some heavy lifting here. She captures that weird transition from a sheltered teenager to the most powerful person on the planet without making it look like a chore. There’s a scene early on where she’s just… sitting there, dealing with her mother’s constant hovering, and you can see the exhaustion in her eyes. It’s a quiet moment, but it hits harder than the big speeches.

The chemistry between her and Anton Walbrook? It’s surprisingly real. Usually, in movies like this, the romance feels like a box being checked off on a list. Here, they actually look like they like each other. When he walks into a room, her face does this tiny, almost invisible shift. It’s a great bit of acting that you’d miss if you were looking at your phone.

Notes from the couch:

• The wigs. Oh boy, the wigs are doing a lot of work.
• The way the music swells every time a carriage pulls up. It’s a bit much, honestly.
• I kept thinking about Men Must Fight and how differently these eras handle duty vs. personal life.
• There is a sequence in the middle that drags on for an eternity. I think they wanted to show the passage of time, but it mostly just felt like I was waiting for the kettle to boil.

Some of the supporting characters feel like they’re reading from a teleprompter, but maybe that’s just how people talked back then? It has that stiff, stagey quality that you get with movies from the late 30s. It doesn't bother me much, though. It’s got charm.

The movie doesn't really try to reinvent the wheel. It isn't trying to be The Heart of Maryland in terms of spectacle, and it’s certainly not trying to be a comedy like Hawaiian Holiday. It just wants to tell you how a woman became a legend while staying human. It’s simple. Sometimes that’s enough.

Also, the lighting in the palace scenes is kind of fascinating. It’s all very dramatic, with these long shadows that make the corridors look like they go on forever. It makes the place feel huge, cold, and a little bit lonely. Which, I guess, is exactly how she felt. 👑