Victoria & Abdul (2017)

VICTORIA & ABDUL  (2017)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Stephen Frears
    Judi Dench, Ali Fazal, Tim Pigott-Smith,
    Eddie Izzard, Adeel Akhtar, Michael Gambon,
    Olivia Williams, Fenella Woolgar, Paul Higgins,
    Robin Soans, Julian Wadham, Simon Callow
I caught this at the Crest with Ms. Applebaum, who thought it was more of a drama, while I thought it was more of a comedy. (As one of the few people on the planet who thought "Blue Jasmine" was a comedy, I'm aware that my judgment in this area might not be the best.) It's late in the long life and reign of Queen Victoria, when her majesty strikes up an unlikely  relationship with an Indian Muslim named Abdul Karim, who becomes her teacher, confidant, and evidently her only real friend. This horrifies practically everybody in the palace, from the servants to the prime minister, but there's not much they can do about it, except exchange pained looks as they wait for Victoria to croak, and she's taking her time doing that. Judi Dench, who played Victoria before in "Mrs. Brown" (1997), takes no prisoners as the bossy, cantankerous queen. Ali Fazal is the devoted Abdul, her "munshi". A lot of it plays like "Harold and Maude" at the royal court, and Frears gets a lot of mileage out of the odd-couple chemistry Dench and Fazal bring to their work together. There's an underlying seriousness about it, too, and most of the queen's retainers treat Abdul with undisguised contempt, but I guess I'd still say it comes off as more of a comedy. Just remember, I thought that about "Blue Jasmine", too.