Queen Victoria would not have been amused

YOUNG Victoria, a movie produced by the unlikely couple of Martin Scorsese and Sarah "Fergie" Ferguson, asks us to re-imagine the famously frumpy and uptight Queen Victoria as a young, impetuous girl with improbably perfect teeth.

YOUNG Victoria, a movie produced by the unlikely couple of Martin Scorsese and Sarah "Fergie" Ferguson, asks us to re-imagine the famously frumpy and uptight Queen Victoria as a young, impetuous girl with improbably perfect teeth.

It's the sort of lavish costume drama that has become a rite of passage for rising young actresses. In this case the anointed star and recipient of extensive cosmetic dental work is Emily Blunt, whose ascent began as the cheeky secretary in The Devil Wears Prada in 2006.

Victoria, whose ample posterior occupied the British throne for a whopping 64 years, holds the record as the longest-serving monarch. But the most startling thing about Victoria's story as told by Julian Fellowes, author of Gosford Park, and French-Canadian filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée, is just how uneventful her reign was. Unlike with her fierce predecessor, Elizabeth I - who was all "Off with their heads!" at the slightest provocation - it appears the only extraordinary thing about Victoria was her royal birth.

The palace is a prison for the young Victoria, a girl smothered by her overprotective mother, the Duchess of Kent (Miranda Richardson, who owns the screen every time she appears), and her conniving lover, Sir John Conroy, who has designs on the crown. Victoria is lonely but never alone; forbidden even to climb the stairs without holding someone's hand.

Freedom comes when she turns 18, but not without a cost - she finds herself a pawn in an international chess game between her two uncles, the kings of England and Belgium (chess may be a hackneyed metaphor but it's one the film insists on).

Victoria finds lukewarm love in the arms of her German cousin Prince Albert, played by fellow newcomer Rupert Friend.

Outside of fending off suitors and a failed assassination attempt, the greatest challenge that faces Victoria appears to be how best to wear her hair on any given day. For some reason - perhaps because she would no longer deserve the designation "young" or be played by such a pretty actress - Fellowes and Vallée relegate the rest of her achievements, which took place later in life, to a footnote in the epilogue. It's at the expense of any real story.

As it stands, Young Victoria is just a boring parade of campy costumes.