Victoria Regina

Film: Mrs. Brown (Her Majesty Mrs. Brown)
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

I don’t always do so well with period dramas. Sometimes I like them but they frequently leave me cold. The Merchant-Ivory style of film doesn’t do a lot for me in general. With Mrs. Brown (sometimes called Her Majesty Mrs. Brown), I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting into. I knew nothing going in, really, other than that it stars Judi Dench, who I tend to like, and Billy Connolly, who I tend to think is one of the coolest human beings currently on the planet. Call it a wash going in.

This is the story of Queen Victoria (Judi Dench) and her period of mourning after the death of her husband, Prince Albert. Their marriage, which spanned something north of 20 years, was apparently a very happy one, which is a rare thing for monarchs. The death of Albert sent Victoria into a spiral of depression that lasted for a long time. In desperation, John Brown (Billy Connolly) is sent for. Brown was a loyal servant to Albert, and the hope was that he would help draw her out again.

Watching Oscar: Shakespeare in Love

Film: Shakespeare in Love
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

Shakespeare in Love is a film that I’ve consciously not watched, mostly from the intense backlash the film received starting the moment it won Best Picture. For a lot of people, it’s proof positive that a good campaign around Oscar time can work. After all, in the minds of many, this is a frilly period romance that took down Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line. This sort of backlash isn’t really that uncommon. Any film that gets a huge amount of acclaim experiences it at least a little, and when there are other worthy films involved, the backlash is bigger, stronger, and lasts longer.

But that’s hardly the fault of the film. Shakespeare in Love is very much a period piece, and very much a Harlequin romance. I refuse to use the term “chick flick” because I think it’s demeaning, but when that term is used, this is the sort of film that people think of. It’s a film that trades initially on the romance, plyas up the romance throughout, and even contains an additional romance within the romance, since it’s as much about Romeo and Juliet as it is about young Billy the Shake finding an agreeable sheath for his spear.