MRS. BROWN (Miramax) Starring: Judi Dench, Billy Connolly, Antony Sher, Geoffrey Palmer, David Westhead. Screenplay: Jeremy Brock. Producer: Sarah Curtis. Director: John Madden. MPAA Rating: PG (mild profanity, adult themes) Running Time: 105 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
In 1861, Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert died of typhoid fever, sending the monarch into years of secluded mourning. MRS. BROWN deals with an interesting footnote to those years, the relationship between Victoria (Judi Dench) and a Scotish groom named John Brown (Billy Connolly) who comes to service for the queen in 1864. While Victoria has grown accustomed to her servants and family humoring her moods, she finds no such deference in Brown. Indeed, his manner with her borders on outright insolence, but such treatment seems to be exactly what the queen needs to rouse her from her gloom. As Brown becomes Victoria's closest confidante, salacious gossip begins to accumulate around their friendship, including references to Her Royal Highness as "Mrs. Brown."
If MRS. BROWN had been a love story, it would be a pretty poor excuse for one. Jeremy Brock's script offers far too few scenes between the two principles, providing very little sense of the basis for those rumors; their relationship is as much a rumor to viewers of the film as to the scandal-mongers it portrays. Victoria's devotion to Brown remains unexplored, the feelings of both parties purely a matter of conjecture.
Despite promotional suggestions to the contrary, however, MRS. BROWN isn't a love story at all. Instead, it's a drama of political intrigue, both on a national scale and within the queen's own household. As liberals in Parliament begin challenging conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (Antony Sher) with proposed reforms in the status of the monarchy, the facts of the queen's relationship with Brown become irrelevant. The monarchy is no longer inviolate in the eyes of the public, the idea of abolishing it no longer heretical. MRS. BROWN is quite effective as a portrait of rumor as political lever, as well as the changing perception of monarchy. In this context, MRS. BROWN works as a companion piece to another recent film about the British crown in turmoil, THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE -- think of this one as THE SADNESS OF QUEEN VICTORIA.
The household politics are less clearly drawn, due largely to the uneven characterization of Brown. Billy Connolly (previously best known to Americans for replacing Howard Hessemann in the television series "Head of the Class, I'm certain to his great dismay) portrays Brown with a matter-of-fact arrogance which energizes the film. Brown refuses to suffer fools of any social station, a quality which is both his greatest asset and his greatest fault. His motivations, however, fluctuate too frequently -- at times he seems self-serving, at other times insanely devoted to Victoria. John Brown remains as mysterious as his dalliance with the queen.
It is Antony Sher's performance as Disraeli which really makes MRS. BROWN worth watching, capturing the work of a consummate politician in an era when consummate politicians were few and far between. Disraeli gets exactly what he wants while convincing everyone around him that they are getting exactly what they want, all done with a smile, an off-the-cuff remark and a self-effacing manner. If MRS. BROWN were half as compelling behind the doors of Balmoral Castle as it is behind the doors of Parliament, it could have been as fine a romantic tragedy as it is a piece of political theater.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 Disraeli gears: 7.
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