Victoria & Abdul

Movie
German title	Victoria & Abdul
Original title	Victoria & Abdul
Country of production	USA , ; UK
original language	English , Hindi
Publishing year	2017
length	112 minutes
Age rating	FSK 6 ; JMK 0
Rod
Director	Stephen Frears
script	Lee Hall
production	Tim Bevan , ; Eric Fellner , ; Beeban Kidron , ; Tracey Seaward
music	Thomas Newman
camera	Danny Cohen
cut	Melanie Oliver
occupation
	Judi Dench : Queen Victoria ; Ali Fazal : Abdul Karim ; Olivia Williams : Baroness Churchill ; Michael Gambon : Lord Salisbury ; Eddie Izzard : Bertie , Prince of Wales; Tim Pigott-Smith : Sir Henry Ponsonby; Paul Higgins : Dr. Reid; Simon Callow : Giacomo Puccini ; Adeel Akhtar : Mohammed; Fenella Woolgar : Miss Phipps; Julian Wadham : Alick Yorke;

Victoria & Abdul is a British - American biography by Stephen Frears based on a book of the same name by Shrabani Basu . The book and film tell the story of the unusual friendship between the elderly Queen Victoria and her young Indian servant Abdul Karim .

The film premiered out of competition on September 3, 2017 at the 74th Venice International Film Festival . Victoria & Abdul was released in UK theaters on September 15, 2017 and in US theaters on September 22, 2017. A start in Germany took place on September 28, 2017.

action

England in 1887. In addition to being Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for fifty years, Victoria has been Empress of India for ten years . Her golden jubilee of the throne is celebrated with a splendid festival at which the monarch gets to know the young Abdul Karim , who has traveled from India for the occasion to present her with the mohur , an Indian gold coin with her face. Even if the tall young man with the sunny disposition had been told beforehand that he should avoid direct eye contact with the Queen in any case, he smiled at her carefree when greeting her, which impressed Victoria very much. In another encounter, he throws himself on the ground in front of her and presses a kiss on her foot.

Victoria initially employs Abdul as a servant, but soon the stranger, who tells the story so interestingly and writes both exotic and aesthetically, is promoted by her and is given access to her ( sacrosanct ) study and her apartments. A trusting relationship quickly develops between the two, which offends her family and her advisors, especially the Prime Minister and her son Bertie , because they are not used to such behavior from the queen, who is considered to be buttoned up. Victoria takes Abdul into her retinue and asks him to teach her Hindi , which he considers inappropriate given her high standing, and instead teaches the more formal Urdu spoken by the Muslim population of India.

Through long and inspiring conversations about the limitations of their position, a real friendship soon develops between the servant and the monarch. Conversely, Abdul tells her a lot about his native India. She also learns from him that he is a Muslim. Victoria takes Abdul, mostly accompanied by Abdul's companion Mohammed, not only to the royal residence Balmoral Castle and Osborne House on the Isle of Wight , but also on a trip to Florence , where Giacomo Puccini sings a piece of his latest opera Manon Lescaut to Her Majesty and the queen lets herself be carried away to a singing interlude. Although Abdul deeply offended her by untruths about Muslim participation in the Indian uprising and a fatwa against the Queen, Victoria believes in his loyalty and stands by him against the royal household. In addition , to the horror of the court, the young confidante who had risen to Munshi is ennobled by Victoria. She has his wife, whom he had initially concealed, bring her from India. Irritated by the lack of a child blessing by the Indian couple, she initiates a corresponding examination, which, given the woman's full veil, is only superficial, but reveals advanced syphilis in Abdul . Even this compromising result does not lead to his dismissal; rather, Queen Victoria causes her court doctor to treat Abdul.

With her Munshi at her side, the queen begins to see a changing world through different eyes and is happy that she is increasingly regaining her humanity.

Abdul is allowed to kneel on the Queen's deathbed in her final minutes. Sensing her fear of death, he speaks softly: “Don't be afraid, little raindrop”, because, carried away by the current, the drop becomes part of the great ocean. After Victoria's death, Bertie burns all documents, photos and memorabilia that testify to their activities with Abdul and throws him and his family out of the house. Abdul returns to India, where he dies in 1909. Viewers learn in the credits that he kept a diary that was discovered in 2010.

Background and literary template


Court portrait of Queen Victoria on the occasion of her golden jubilee to the throne and Abdul Karim after a painting by Rudolf Swoboda from a similar period

The film is based on the novel Victoria & Abdul: The True Story Of The Queen's Closest Confidant by Shrabani Basu . The book and with it the film are based on real events.

The Indian Mohammed Abdul Karim got a job as one of two personal servants in the royal household in 1887. He became a particularly valued and honored servant of Queen Victoria , who was also Empress of India at the time, and an intimate platonic friendship developed between the two. From the queen, who ruled over a fifth of the earth and a third of the world's population, he was later given the title Munshi , which means something like "teacher" or "employee", which is why Karim was also known as The Munshi . She also appointed him her Indian secretary, who accompanied her on many of her trips.

After Queen Victoria's death in 1901, he returned to India and lived on the land she had bequeathed to him until his own death in 1909. Karim was 46 years old.

production

Staff, cast and dubbing

Ali Fazal plays Abdul Karim in the film

The film was jointly produced by BBC Films, Cross Street Films, Perfect World Pictures and Working Title Films . The director took Stephen Frears . The British author Lee Hall adapted Basu's novel for the film.

Judi Dench took on the role of Queen Victoria , while the Indian-born actor Ali Fazal played the second title role with Abdul Karim . Dench had played Queen Victoria in the 1997 film Her Majesty Mrs. Brown . For this role, Dench was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress at the 1998 Academy Awards. In September 2016, the cast of Michael Gambon and Olivia Williams was announced. Gambon plays Lord Salisbury, the British Foreign Secretary in the film . Tim Pigott-Smith took on the role of Victoria's chief secretary Sir Henry Ponsonby and Olivia Williams that of her companion Baroness Churchill . Eddie Izzard plays Victoria's son Bertie and Julian Wadham plays the chambermaid Alick Yorke. The role of Abdul's traveling companion, Mohammed, was cast by Adeel Akhtar , and Giacomo Puccini by Simon Callow . Ruth McCabe and Fenella Woolgar can also be seen in other roles .

Some of the actors have been ennobled themselves, like the characters they play in the film, including Dench as Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and Gambon as Knight Bachelor .

In the German dubbing, Kerstin De Ahna can be heard in the role of Queen Victoria and Imtiaz Haque in the role of Abdul Karim.

Filming and film music

Filming started in September 2016. The film was shot in England , Scotland and India , but mostly in Agra and the greater London area . In England, recordings were also made at the University of Greenwich , Osborne House in Cowes on the Isle of Wight , Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire , the National Railway Museum in York (North Yorkshire) and Ham House in Richmond (Surrey). In Scotland, the shooting took place in the Cairngorms Highlands . The last phase of filming took place in the Indian city of Agra in the state of Uttar Pradesh , where at the time of filming people were protesting against the installation of a statue of Queen Victoria, which caused the makers of the film to panic. Recordings that are supposed to play in Agra had also taken place in front of the scenes in London. Further recordings were made in the Delhi metropolitan area . Shooting ended in November 2016. Danny Cohen acted as cameraman . Alan MacDonald created the production design.

The score was composed by Thomas Newman . The soundtrack to the film includes 32 pieces of music and was released by Back Lot Music on September 22, 2017.

publication

On May 30, 2017, Universal Pictures published a first trailer for the film on YouTube.

The film premiered out of competition at the 74th Venice Film Festival on September 3, 2017 . The premiere was accompanied by an award for Frears, who will receive the “Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker” award in Venice for his exceptional contribution to the innovation of contemporary cinema. Also in September 2017, the film was presented at the Toronto International Film Festival . The film was released in UK theaters on September 15, 2017 and was released in select US theaters by Focus Features on September 22, 2017. A start in Germany took place on September 28, 2017.

reception

Reviews and grossing results

So far, the film has won over 66 percent of Rotten Tomatoes ' critics .

Alonso Duralde from The Wrap is not convinced by the film as a whole, but by Judi Dench , who shows all sides of her acting range as Queen Victoria and once again embodies the monarch as a lonely widow who, surrounded by droolers and schemers and disappointed by her children, just longs for human company.

In his criticism, Hans-Ulrich Pönack also praised Judi Dench's acting achievements: "How she [...] celebrates controversial presence at its finest with her once again extremely powerful, convincing body language, that is already the top level highly entertaining, excellent and very enjoyable acting. "

In the broadcast Vorgespult on September 23, 2017 on Deutschlandfunk Kultur , Christian Berndt describes the director's efforts to give the story an up-to-date reference to the topic of xenophobia and Islamophobia as “cross-naive”. In Great Britain he is accused of trying to whitewash colonial history. In the judgment, Berndt calls the film "unhistorically transfigured nonsense".

From the German Film and Media Review was Victoria & Abdul with the predicate particularly valuable provided. The reasoning states: “'Victoria and Abdul' is a subtle story about people of different origins, cultural backgrounds and social classes. The initial feel-good aspect of the production gives way after the central turn to the humanistic drama, which exposes narrow-mindedness, chauvinism, class arrogance and racism at court. Abdul serves as the queen must serve. The stranger makes this meaning of service clear to her. "

Susanne Mayer , on the other hand, criticizes in her review of the time Frear's limited focus on tracking down "the people" behind the official role and complains about the dripping kitschy material of the film, the script of which does not miss a gag at the expense of court ladies, sweating officials and errand boys in uniform . Without the brilliant acting performance of Judi Dench, who does manage to “turn a bad film into something very wonderful”, Frears Victoria & Abdul would “derail” and “slip on their obligatory jokes”.

In its film review, Die Welt also praised the great performance of Judi Dench with her remarkable "courage to malice and ugliness". What they show, it is said, is terrific. What she has to say, however, is "not particularly interesting". So you look at first perplexed, then increasingly bored at this movie character in Frear's film adaptation.

The film's worldwide revenue from theatrical screenings to date is $ 65.4 million. The film recorded 422,250 visitors in Germany.

Awards (selection)

On December 18, 2017, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that Thomas Newman's work was on a shortlist from which the nominations in the category Best Film Music will be made at the 2018 Academy Awards . At about the same time, the Academy announced that the film was also in the preselection, from which the nominees in the categories Best Make-Up and Best Hairstyles would be determined. The following is a selection of nominations for other film awards.

AACTA International Awards 2018