REVIEW: Her Majesty Mrs Brown (1997)
The attraction of love is a powerful thing. In the tale of Queen Victoria and an extravagant veteran servant, awkwardly titled "Mrs Brown," we are reminded of a value lesson. For when the word love is mentioned, we immediately think of marriages and intimate relationships. But the love and attraction highlighted in Mrs Brown is not the kind found in sex or marriage; rather in the wonder and bondage of a true friendship.
During the lengthy reign of Queen Victoria (Judi Dench), her majesty went through a period of deep grief and depression after the death of her beloved husband Albert. Disappearing from public view and perception, the secretive and distressed Queen has lost confidence in her role as leader of the country.
Entering her life is John Brown (Billy Connolly), a loyal yet outspoken servant that devotes his life to giving the Queen confidence and protection at any cost. Over the following couple of years the two become immersed in friendship and drawn together with a powerful attraction. The Queen is not an attractive woman, but her power and stand in society is, and although both of them realize and even consider the costs of having an affair, the intimate boundaries of their friendship prevents them from doing so. Behind her back, the Queen is dubbed as "Mrs. Brown."
Whilst this relationship is taking place, England is not benefiting from the Queen's seemingly eternal absence from public view. So as the monarchy beings to fall into crisis, Prime Minister Disraeli (Anthony Sher) realizes that Brown is the key to refreshing faith in the crown.
Mrs. Brown can surely be considered as an elegant and graceful film, but it quickly finds itself trying too hard to make us care for the relationship between the Queen and Brown, which ultimately falls flat on its face as soon as we are witness to the Queen's uninspiring and emotionless personality. The film's dialogue doesn't give Judi Dench any chance to get into her distressing role, so naturally when the Queen enters the scene Mrs Brown takes a tumble into an almost non existent level of interest.
Billy Connolly, responsible for picking up the pieces of a fairly weak film, is an absolute revelation and refreshes the audience with a touch of well placed humor and a diligent presence on the screen. For those of you who don't know, he is actually a stand up comedian - so if you thought that casting him as John Brown would be like casting Jerry Seinfeld as Hamlet, think again.
The finest part of Mrs Brown's awkwardly crafted collection of scenes is just near the end, yet ironically the final scenes of the film are among the worst. They seem incredibly rushed and hastily put together; so as the lights in the cinema were becoming brighter I was left gazing at the credits asking myself - "Did I miss something?"
Another main problem with the film, and call me what you will, is that it's just not interesting enough. I don't have anything against historical and periodic stories, but Mrs. Brown proved too bland and often much too dull to keep me eagerly watching. There are two ways that the production crew could have addressed this problem - either alter history to suit the film's needs (which, thankfully, they did not do) or to change the focus of the story to a more interesting character or setting. So in this case, I would have been delighted if Mrs. Brown had shown us much more of Billy Connolly's intriguing character rather than monotonous Queen who doesn't tantalize any climatic taste buds.
But overall, Mrs Brown is an entertaining period film that could have been much more than what it amounted to be, and the main problem lies in the relationship between the Queen and Brown that never really works. More often then not the film appears to be emotionless and cold; which should never be related to a film so caught up in love and loyalty.
2 = stars out of 5
For a film originally made for British TV, the idiot box would be an ideal place to showcase this slightly disappointing drama.
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