The 24th of May is the Queen’s birthday, so they sang in my mother’s day. Ottawa’s excellent repertory cinema, the ByTowne (another reason why I’d like to get posted to Ottawa), was cleverly running the 2009 film The Young Victoria, so as a good subject in the town she chose as Canada’s capital, I went to see it.

Beautiful looking film, and Emily Blunt brought a lot of intelligence to the role. Not sure I learned that much about history, but it was better than the Marie Antoinette film that came out a few years back. I tend to agree with Anthony Lane that Blunt was the best thing hiding in an otherwise staid but visually gorgeous film.

And, since Kate Beaton is still making me laugh, here’s her take on Victoria Day.