‘Victoria & Abdul’ on HBO: Why Judi Dench Makes Bad Movies Worth It

By Joe Reid @joereid
Published July 28, 2018, 6:00 p.m. ET

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Tonight on HBO, you can enjoy a great actress returning to her breakthrough role. In 1997, Dame Judi Dench got her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, for her performance as Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown. Twenty years later, Dench suited up again as Queen V had one last adventure in her.

Victoria & Abdul, premiering on HBO Saturday night, tells the story of an aged Victoria — who ruled Britain for 63 years and died at age 81 — who becomes fond of Abdul Karim, the Indian man who is sent to deliver a gift for her Golden Jubilee. Victoria, bored and frustrated with her family (waiting for her to die so they can take over) and attendants, begins a friendship with Abdul, a Muslim who teaches her much about his culture and the Qur’an. Just from the description, you can tell that this is a “brown person teaches colonizer; colonizer is nice as a reward” movies that is always at least a little bit problematic. Which would have been one thing if the rest of the film were engaging or exciting, but director Stephen Frears and screenwriter Lee Hall (Billy Elliott) aren’t up to the task.

And yet: there’s Judi Dench. Even when the movie around her falters, she’s there to put on a show and elevate pedestrian material. She ended up with Golden Globe and SAG nominations last year, and likely came within a hair’s breadth of an Oscar nod as well. That’s kind of Judi Dench’s superpower. She’s done it again and again:

    • Nine (2009). Director: Rob Marshall. Marshall’s musical follow-up to Chicago did not enjoy the same success, despite utilizing the same fantasy-sequence framing for all the musical numbers. The glitzy cast of A-listers — Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Kate Hudson, a puzzlingly Oscar-nominated Penelope Cruz — are all outshone by Fergie, of all people. And in Italian film director Guido, we finally found the role that Daniel Day-Lewis can’t make compelling. Dench is there too, and while she too can’t seem to match Fergie’s bravado on  “Be Italian,” she easily wraps up the film’s silver medal, with her performance of “Folies Bergeres.”
  • Quantum of Solace (2008). Director: Marc Forster. There are good James Bond films and there are bad James Bond films. This one, the second outing with Daniel Craig in the signature Aston Martin, is one of the more forgettable ones, that’s for sure. But no Bond film is worthless, especially any of the ones with Dench in the role of M.
  • Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005). Director: Stephen Frears. Not to pile on Frears or anything, what with this AND Victoria & Abdul on the list. But this is an unmemorable trifle of a film that Dench still managed to elevate into yet another Oscar nomination.
  • The Chronicles of Riddick (2004). Director: David Twohy. If you ever wanted to see Dame Judi Dench playing a creature called an Air Elemental, fighting against necromongers in a Vin Diesel sci-fi epic, well, there’s really only one choice.

Where to stream Victoria & Abdul