On tepid ground

Nonika Singh

It’s an unusual relationship between the Empress of India, Queen Victoria and a mere commoner Abdul Karim, who lands in Buckingham Palace and ends up becoming an integral part of the royal household. 

Yes, the year is 1887 exactly 29 years after the queen was formally declared the ruler of India. So, the Empress of India is an expression you get to hear often enough. But the film really isn’t about imperialism or colonial power or for that matter the splendour of British royalty even though regal paraphernalia exists in ample measure.

That it doesn’t take the queen’s lofty stature too seriously is evident early on. In fact, before we even see Judi Dench as the mighty queen, we can see her frailty as all of queen’s maids put her together. How this is no uppity queen too is clear as we see her shoving the food down her mouth. But mind you, she is no pushover either. 

How she stands by Abdul who soon becomes her Munshi (read teacher), how she becomes so very fond of him that the entire household, including  her son conspire against him forms the crux of the story. But a tale that should have been truly heartwarming, if not soul-stirring, is only fuzzily warm and prickly funny.

Dench, whom Indian audiences would remember as the formidable M of a clutch of Bond films, is literally the monarch of all she surveys. From the darting look she gives to the vulnerability of her being to finally the stuff that the longest serving monarch of that time was made of…. It’s indeed a portrayal to die for. 

As for Ali Fazal, without a doubt, he is earnest and sincere but somehow gets trapped in his part of a fawning underdog. Despite his best efforts he remains the unequal part of the equation. While ample space is given to the what and why of the queen’s emotions, we don’t quite get the hang of his feelings.

Except that he considers life a long adventure and a place in queen’s Buckingham palace and heart is for him as adventurous as it can get. Clearly she towers over all else especially when she delivers a short monologue about herself that dwells on her acute awareness of her frailties. But the part where she is shown as someone unaware of Muslim’s involvement in the mutiny of 1857 or ignorant of the trivia about the Taj Mahal doesn’t pass muster.

And for a while, the narrative almost sounds like a basic primer on India, for those totally oblivious to India. In comparison the bits where Abdul talks about mysticism and quotes Rumi are more convincing. Indeed, those were not the times of supersonic modes of communication and it’s well possible that British were clueless about most things Indian, including mango. No wonder they keep addressing Abdul and his friend as Hindoos.  

The film, of course, proclaims to be based on true events with a rider that says mostly. Based on Shrabani Basu’s book, it’s hard to know where the border of that mostly begins or ends. However, clearly the film is not a figment of imagination, even if it gets a trifle cloying. In the year in which India celebrates 70 years of its independence, a throwback to those years of the British raj, even if seen through rose-tinted glasses, won’t harm anyone. Watch Victoria and Abdul with no expectations of any insightful observations of history, only to recall how friendships can be forged beyond the divide of class and religion. That indeed is a redeeming thought in a film whose most redeeming aspect undeniably is Dench’s sterling act.  In short, the empress impresses, even if the film doesn’t.