Mrs. Brown

Directed By : John Madden

Starring: Judi Dench, Billy Connolly, Geoffrey Palmer, Antony Sher, David Westhead, Gerard Butler, Richard Pasco

Distributed By: Buena Vista International/Miramax

Release Date: July 1997

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This wonderful movie tells of Queen Victoria's reclusiveness after the death of her beloved consort Prince Albert.
Judi Dench is superb and brings such depth to Victoria who is stern and somewhat distant but there is fragility in her heart and a longing to regain the type of companionship that she has lost and this is displayed in beautiful fleeting moments throughout the movie.
Billy Connolly is absolutely remarkable as John Brown.
I love that he treats Victoria as an absolute equal! He's brash and makes mistakes but the connection and friendship that blossoms between them is quite lovely, even when they are at odds with each other.
Gerard Butler gives a very good performance as John's younger brother and the two actors share great chemistry. Geoffrey Palmer is excellent as Henry Ponsonby and I also really like Antony Sher as Prime Minister Desraeli.
Credit also goes to David Westhead who makes Victoria's son Bertie seem quite arrogant but also brings across the need for some sort of display of love and compassion from his bereaved Mother.
The scenery throughout is beautiful and each actor contributes greatly in making this a heartfelt story about loss and service to your country.
Although the story itself is sombre there are some lovely moments of humour mixed in and this film really gives a glimpse of what this period of history must have been like and how love and grief affect us all regardless of status and that friendship and time really can help to mend a broken heart!
~~Nikki~~