Whereas "Mrs. Brown" found Judi Dench portraying a younger, recently-widowed Queen Victoria struggling with her duties amid inconsolable grief, "Victoria & Abdul" centers on a lonely, fading monarch as weary of her position as she is her boorish courtiers. Into that insulated English drama arrives Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal), a charming prison clerk dispatched from British-ruled India to offer Her Majesty an opulent coin minted in honor of the Queen's Jubilee.
An outsider if ever there was one, Victoria is instantly taken with Abdul, and as the pair get acquainted, casual curiosity soon blossoms into a powerful friendship that threatened to turn the Queen's court on its head. Adapted from Sharbani Basu's historical novel of the same name and directed by Stephen Frears ("The Grifters," "High Fidelity," "The Queen"), "Victoria & Abdul" focuses much of its narrative on the unexpected central relationship, with Dench and Azal each delivering performances far more worthy of awards season attention than either received in 2017. Ditto for many in the film's supporting cast, which includes Eddie Izzard, Michael Gambon, and Olivia Williams.
While "Victoria & Abdul" fared well enough at the box office (per Box Office Mojo) and holds a 66% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it still feels like not enough people have seen this charming drama. Thankfully, a healthy Netflix run is now righting that particular wrong.
