Historically - as far as the cinema is concerned - Queen Victoria was born well into her seventies. Rarely has anyone tried to depict her early years and sadly, this is a rather shallow attempt so to do. Emily Blunt portrays the Queen with some fortitude but the rather soppy performances from Rupert Friend and Paul Bettany don't give us anything like a proper comprehension of the struggle she had, as a (young) woman, to establish herself at the head of an empire riddled with chauvinism, ambition and pomposity. Miranda Richardson as her mother takes up some of the slack in this lacklustre effort... read the rest.