![]() She returns his gaze and, later, noting his height and looks, decides to bring him gradually into her service. (“The place is completely barbaric,” he complains, citing-in a clever inversion-the English consumption of food featuring pig’s blood and sheep’s brains.)ĭespite instructions that he make no eye contact with the queen, Karim does exactly that at the first opportunity. Karim is entranced Mohammed, not so much. Karim recedes a bit in the latter half of the film, becoming less a character than a metaphor for tolerance.Īrriving in England, the two are instructed in the niceties of the Court (“The key to good service is standing still and moving backwards”), and solid comic mileage is gotten out of the elaborate etiquette and pantomime of a state dinner. Two Indian clerks are chosen to present the coin by virtue of their height: Karim (played by Ali Fazal), who is in fact tall, and Mohammed (Adeel Akhtar), who is not, and was instead a last-minute fill-in. In her honor, a ceremonial coin is minted in India, which has been under formal British rule for nearly three decades. The story begins in 1887, with the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, the 50th anniversary of her ascension to the throne. Victoria & Abdul, by contrast, is an elegant yet sprightly romp-albeit one that has been justifiably criticized for historical revisionism regarding the relationship between Britain and the Raj, as well as for the relatively two-dimensional portrait of Karim. Brown was a slow and somewhat awkward period drama. Despite strong performances by Dench and Billy Connolly (as Brown), Mrs. That is, however, more or less where the resemblances between the two films end. Victoria, who lost her beloved husband, Prince Albert, 24 years into her 64-year reign, never remarried, and both Brown and, subsequently, Karim served as important servant-companions in her later years. It is worth noting that, despite some liberties taken, both films are based on real-life events. The film concerns the queen’s close relationship with a common-born Indian Muslim man named Abdul Karim, a relationship that was regarded with concern and envy by her court and family. Brown, her sole win for Madden’s later Shakespeare in Love-Dench again plays Victoria (though somewhat older) in Stephen Frears’s Victoria & Abdul. Twenty years and seven Oscar nominations later-her first was for Mrs.
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