Date: Fri 24-Oct-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: DONNAM

Quick Words:

Playing-Brown-royalty-film

Full Text:

(rev "Her Majesty Mrs Brown" for Now Playing, 10/24/97)

Now Playing--

Queen Victoria, In a Funk

By Trey Paul Alexander III

The opening titles of Her Majesty Mrs Brown reveal that Queen Victoria (Judi

Dench) has been in an inconsolable funk.

The time is 1864 and it has been three long years since the death of her

beloved husband, Prince Albert, from typhoid fever, yet she remains in a

determined state of mourning. She has withdrawn from the public eye and

insists on being detached form her own kin. Her measure of engaging in polite

family dinner conversation is to follow up a compliment on her

daughter-in-law's shawl with an observation that the cloth falls on a

too-fragile, frail frame. "One must not let vanity overrule one's appetite,"

she chides, just before a hasty retreat from the dining room. Such brittleness

spurs her private secretary, Sir Henry Posonby (Geoffrey Palmer), to call on

Scotsman John Brown (Billy Connolly), an old huntsman friend of Prince

Albert's, to revive her spirits and therefore rekindle national faith in the

monarchy. Thus begins a fascinating tale of loyalty and friendship, which is

currently playing at the Bethel Cinema.

All that Posonby hopes to accomplish by bringing the newcomer into the mix is

immediately offset by Brown's brash, unstately manner, a wildcard for which

the stuffy secretary had left unaccounted. Brown blatantly disregards royal

protocol by speaking when not spoken to, chastising her majesty as a "silly

old woman," and giving advice that runs contrary to the voices of Victoria's

family and tenured advisers, including Posonby, the very one responsible for

Brown's presence in the first place.

Indeed, it is Victoria's penchant for heeding Brown's words above everyone

else's that starts tongues awagging, both within the royal house and around

the British countryside, which desperately seeks a reason for her continued

absence from political life. Within parliament, talk of disbanding the

monarchy is beginning to mount, promoting a calculating Prime Minister

Disraeli (the wonderfully oily Anthony Sher) to commence a round of public

pulse-taking and political gamesmanship that would make current popularity

pollsters and trend-charters proud. Will he side with the reclusive queen, or

will he stake a claim with the usurpers to the throne?

Her Majesty Mrs Brown nicely balances the human drama of the association

between Queen Victoria and John Brown with the repercussions their rapport has

on the political arena. While we American audiences may not immediately

identify with the type of reverence deemed to the queen or the shock

demonstrated as Brown (a simple commoner!) shirks such outward displays, we

most certainly can appreciate the power of gossip, the people's craving for

information on civic or celebrity figures, and the swaying force that public

opinion can have on the political landscape. The nature of Brown's and

Victoria's relationship becomes the subject of many a British publication --

the 19th Century equivalent of tabloid papers? -- and before long, countless

stories, beginning with the ominous, "I understand that...," start circulating

across the land.

Dench and Connolly may never be mistaken for a hot marquee match-up like

Gibson and Roberts or Bogart and Bacall. In fact, it is rather amusing to me

that in the States, Dench is probably best known for her role as M, James

Bond's boss in Goldeneye , and Connolly as the Brit stand-up who took over

Howard Hessman's role in the sitcom "Head of the Class." Nevertheless, despite

their relative anonymity on these shores, their pairing is potent and lasting,

giving flight to dramatization of a time when manners and decorum were

professed to be of supreme importance.

Her Majesty Mrs Brown is rated PG. It contains mild profanity, little violence

and brief nudity.