A Royal Night Out (2015)

I'd been looking forward to A Royal Night Out's release since first seeing the trailer a few weeks ago. Now, after seeing the film, I'm happy to report that I wasn't disappointed. The action begins slowly, but once the royal sisters become enmeshed in London's VE night revelries I found myself being carried along by events in ways that were at times funny, at times exciting, at times emotionally moving - even at times with feelings of national pride - but always with interest and anticipation.

A simply delightful story that beautifully reveals the shared humanity of the British people as they celebrate the end of the war against Nazism. A fine script and excellent direction stunningly recreate the spirit and details of the era and the lives of the royal family are skilfully made real. The two young women in the leads certainly do well in bringing their characters to life and Rupert Everet is quite good as King George. However, it is Emily Watson who shines in her role as Queen Elizabeth, later to become the Queen Mother.


This film is really very funny, I don't know how else it could be described. It's not history and it's nowhere near accurate, but the jokes are delivered well and some are really laugh out loud funny. I would say take the plot with a pinch of salt and prepare your self for a fairy tale. Bel Powley is a hoot as P.No2, Sarah Gadon is the lovely P.No1 who finds a guardian angel in Jack Reynor. Rupert Everett made for a rather charming King George but I did wonder where Queen Elizabeth's (the Queen Mum) famous charm went.

Nevertheless, Gadon does the job well, making us think about how much Her Majesty has given up and did give up – in order to do the job, reminding us that what we today know as a supremely-dutiful and accomplished statesperson (and an immensely, incredibly resilient woman) was (very) young, very pretty and very socially-awkward once, and did want to kick her heels a bit, even though at every stage her actions were tempered by knowledge of the privilege/lifelong burden that was just around the corner. At several moments we are reminded of these truths with almost painful clarity in the film, which in this way (and thanks primarily to Sarah Gadon) drags itself kicking and screaming out of the real pastiche and failure it might otherwise have been.