Victoria and Abdul (2017)

Victoria and Abdul is a historical and biographical movie (based on a true story) about an unlikely friendship between Queen Victoria and Abdul Karim, an Indian prison clerk from Agra. Here is some basic information about this movie which premiered in 2017:

** Directed by Stephen Frears
** Screenplay written by Lee Hall
** Based on a book by Shrabani Basu
** Run time: 111 minutes

The cast includes the following:

** Judi Dench as Victoria (1819-1901) - queen of England 1837-1901
** Ali Fazal as Abdul Karim (1863-1909) – a prison clerk in Agra, later Victoria’s companion
** Tim Pigott-Smith (1946-2017) as Sir Henry Ponsonby (1825-1895) - Victoria’s personal secretary

** Eddie Izzard as Bertie, Prince of Wales (1841-1910) – King Edward VII 1901-1910
** Adeel Akhtar as Mohammed Buksh (born? Died 1899) – an Indian servant who arrived in England with Abdul Karim
** Michael Gambon as Lord Salisbury (1830-1903) – a British politician, Prime Minister 1895-1902

** Paul Higgins as Dr James Reid (1849-1923) – Victoria’s personal physician
** Olivia Williams as Lady Churchill (1826-1900) – Victoria’s Lady of the Bedchamber 1854-1900
** Fenella Woolgar as Miss Harriet Phipps (1841-1922) – the queen’s maid of honour

The Indian author Shrabani Basu was born in Calcutta; she grew up in Dhaka, Kathmandu and Delhi. In 1987 she moved to London where she is still based. The first version of her book Victoria and Abdul was published in 2010. A paperback version appeared in 2017.

Since this movie is based on a true story, the basic facts are part of the public record. They are not a secret. Therefore I feel free to mention some of them in this review.

While this movie is based on a true story, it is not a documentary film. It is a dramatized version of events. Not everything happened exactly as shown in the movie. But the basic storyline is true.

An on-screen message at the beginning of the movie states:

“Based on a true story … mostly.”

The significance of the final word “mostly” will be explained below. For now I will to tell you how the story begins:

The year is 1887. Karim Abdul is a prison clerk in Agra, the town where Taj Mahal is located. In London, Queen Victoria celebrates an important anniversary: 50 years as queen of England. Among the numerous ceremonies and events of this year, it has been decided that two Indians will travel to England and present the queen with a ceremonial coin. Abdul Karim and Mohammed Buksh are chosen for this task.

Once they arrive and present the ceremonial coin, Victoria is impressed by Abdul, the tall man from India; and she wants him to stay on as her servant for a while. Soon, he is promoted to her “munshi,” i.e. her personal teacher of Urdu. As long as Abdul is there, Mohammed is also there, even though he would like to go home, so both Indians stay on for a while.

The people around Victoria - the royal staff and members of the royal family - are surprised and shocked by the queen’s decision to have an ordinary Indian man so close so often, but since she is the queen, her word is the law, and they cannot do anything to stop her. A serious conflict is building up here. How is it going to end?

This is how the movie begins, and this is where my presentation ends. If you want to know what happens with Victoria and Abdul and the people around them, you will have to watch the movie – or read the book – all the way to the end.

What do reviewers say about it? The ratings are not very impressive given that one of the two the leading characters is played by the famous and award-winning actress Judy Dench. Here are the results of three movie aggregators:

** 57 per cent = Metacritic; 2.9 stars on Amazon

** 65 per cent = IMDb, 3.3 stars on Amazon

** 68 per cent = Rotten Tomatoes; 3.4 stars on Amazon

I think there are two ways to look at this movie:

(1) If you do not care about historical accuracy, if you simply want to be entertained for one or two hours, then this movie does an excellent job. For entertainment, for historical comedy, this movie deserves a rating of four or five stars.

(2) If you want more than historical comedy, if you think historical accuracy is important, then this movie is flawed. I guess this is why the three average ratings mentioned above hover around three stars and no more than that.

I cannot use the first option. For me, the second option is the only way to go. Once the director and the writer decide to make a movie about a historical object, I think they should stick to the facts as much as possible. Historical truth should not be violated in any significant way, only with regard to minor details and only if there is a very good reason to do so.

Unfortunately, the movie-makers decided to go with the first option. They use historical facts as a starting point from which they invent their own story. They do not give us the whole story; they do not present the historical facts as we know them. This is a shame, because the real story is very interesting in itself. It does not need to be “spiced up” or to be “improved” in order to be presented on the big screen.

What is wrong with this movie? Let me explain:

# 1. In the movie, the two Indians are told that they must travel to England, present the ceremonial coin to the queen, and then return to India again. In the real world, things were different. The queen wanted two Indian servants to work for her during the jubilee year (1887). They knew from the start that they were going to stay in England for 6-12 months. In other words: the opening of the movie gives us a false impression of the whole situation. And this is only the beginning. It gets worse, as the story rolls along.

# 2. The Abdul that we see in the movie is always in a good mood. He is happy to serve the queen. He never asks for anything. This is not quite true. In the real world, things were rather different.

Once Abdul realized that he was the queen’s favourite, he no longer wanted to be regarded as a servant. He began to see himself as someone who was better than others; who was more than others. And he began to ask for special favours. Here are some examples:

(a) In August 1888, he complains to Victoria, saying that working as a servant is beneath him. That is why she promotes him to be her “munshi.”

(b) In 1888, he asks Victoria to get a pension for his father in India who is going to retire soon. Following his request, the queen begins to write a series of letters to officials in India in order to fulfil Abdul’s wish.

(c) In April 1889, he is offended, because he was seated among the servants at an official ceremony.

(d) In 1891, he asks Dr Reid to send a large amount of medical products to his father in India. His father is a pharmacist in Agra. The doctor refuses to do this.

(e) During a visit to Coburg, he refuses to attend a marriage ceremony, because he was seated among the servants.

(f) In 1897, he asks the queen for a special Indian title, “Nawab.” Two years later the queen gives him a medal (CVO).

# 3. In the movie, Abdul serves the queen for 14 years, from the jubilee in 1887 to her death in 1901. According to the movie, he returns to India only once during those 14 years. When he returns, he is accompanied by his wife and his mother-in-law. The impression given by the movie is that he travelled back to India only once during the 14 years of service to the queen. In the real world things were rather different. He travelled back to India no less than four times:

** November 1888 – four months’ leave

** October 1890 – four months’ leave

** May 1892 – six months’ leave – when he returns from this journey he is accompanied by his wife and his mother-in-law

** November 1899 – 12 months’ leave

Four round trips from England to India! Who paid for these trips? There was only one person who could pay: Queen Victoria.

To sum up: the Abdul that we see in the movie is a very nice man. He is very likeable. He never asks for anything. We never see him use his position to get a special favour for himself or someone close to him.

The real Abdul was not like that. He was a different man. Once he realized that he was the queen’s favourite, he started to use this position to get benefits and privileges for himself and others who were close to him.

He started out as a servant. But before long, he had servants of his own and he refused to be treated as a servant.

The movie-makers did not want to tell us the truth about Abdul. Perhaps they were afraid that we would like him and would not like their movie about him, if they were honest with us, if they told us the whole story.

Perhaps this is why they decided to make Abdul a better man than he really was, and instead of telling us the truth, they focused on the conflict between the Indian servant and the royal staff.

This conflict is real. And it would still be real and worth telling, if the movie-makers had told us the truth about Abdul.

Victoria’s staff were horrified that an ordinary man should sit at the royal table. They had been brought up in the British class system and they could not accept that a person from a lower class was suddenly able to climb the social ladder faster than they were. Members of the royal staff and the royal family were simply jealous of Abdul.

To make matters worse, this ordinary man was not a white man. He was a coloured man from India! In addition to class conflict we also have a racial conflict. Members of the royal staff and the royal family were not only jealous of him; they hated him.

This issue is real. And it would still be real and worth telling, if the movie-makers had told us the truth about Abdul.

It is a shame they didn’t. I wish they had. If they had, I would have been able to respect them for covering an important historical issue in an honest way. By now, we can see the significance of the word “mostly” in the on-screen message that appears at the beginning of the movie.

The movie-makers use this word “mostly” to cover themselves, to protect themselves against criticism. If you ask me, it is not good enough. I cannot give this movie four or five stars, because the real story has been distorted in a serious way. I have to remove at least two stars because of the flaws mentioned above. Therefore I think it deserves a rating of three stars.

PS # 1. The following articles are available online:

** Ben Leach, “The lost diary of Queen Victoria’s final companion,” The Telegraph, 26 February 2011

** “Shrabani Basu, “Revealed: How the Indian confidant Queen Victoria called her ‘dearest friend’ was banished and died a broken man after jealous Royals destroyed the monarch’s touching letters to him following her death,” Daily Mail, 23 July 2017

** Amrou Al-Kahdi, “Victoria and Abdul is another dangerous example of British filmmakers whitewashing colonialism,” The Independent, 16 September 2017

PS # 2. Mrs Brown is a historical drama (based on a true story) about Queen Victoria and her Scottish companion John Brown (1826-1883). In this drama, which was released in 1997, the role of Victoria is played by Judy Bench.

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An old photo of Queen Victoria and Abdul Karim

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