Mrs. Brown

Rating

Director

John Madden

Screenplay

Jeremy Brock

Length

1h 41m

Starring

Judi Dench, Billy Connolly, Geoffrey Palmer, Anthony Sher, Gerard Butler, Richard Pasco, David Westhead, Bridget McConnell, Georgie Glen, Catherine O’Donnell

MPAA Rating

PG

Review

Although its premise is hotly debated, Mrs. Brown explores the relationship between Queen Victoria and her Scottish servant John Brown.

Sequestered for two years after the death of her prince consort, Victoria (Judi Dench) has been mourning his passing but the nation is in need of her leadership or risk monarchical revolt. The government persuades Prince Albert’s servant John Brown (Billy Connolly) to step in and aid their attempts to coax her out of her isolation. He forms a friendship with the queen that enables him to embolden her return to public life but at a cost. He’s brash, resistant to royal protocols, and disdainful of any who would question his position.

Although their relationship is largely built on speculation, rumor, and innuendo, the film attempts to paint the pairing as something of an aggrieved widow finding solace and friendship in someone who isn’t beholden to the strictures of royal life. Written by Jeremy Brock, director John Madden explores a non-sexual kinship between the two in hopes of diving into the humanistic side of the monolithic British monarch whose legacy was one of significance. By giving her an uncharacteristic partner whose opposition to tradition brings out her best, we’re given a rare glimpse into the down-to-earth emotions and vulnerability of a wounded figure.

As Victoria, Dench etches onto celluloid one of film history’s best depictions of a monarch. Giving Victoria freedom to humanize herself to the audience adds dynamic texture, making her a complex figure. It is easily one of her finest performances and is aided immeasurably by Connolly’s fierce magnetism. A force to be reckoned with, John Brown is sometimes crass but always honest, traits that endear him to a woman used to having no equal. Their sometimes combative but always believable relationship gives the film its zest and approachability. Theirs is an enduring relationship that might not be historically accurate but has a ring of truth to it.

Mrs. Brown was one of numerous films in the 1990s and 2000s that focused on the lives of England’s monarchs. Many of those films attempted to humanize those figures but few were as successful as this film was. What many such films fail to understand is that by narrowing the events of the film and limiting the number of characters, a sweeping epic becomes an intimate drama that explores thorny subjects more meaningfully. That’s not to dismiss grand efforts like Elizabeth, which does a tremendous job telling Elizabeth I’s story, but Mrs. Brown is a far more sympathetic figure and Dench makes that evident with her nuanced and vulnerable performance.

Review Written

July 29, 2025