The Young Victoria at Greenbelt Sept. 30

MANILA, Philippines - From the Oscar-winning producing team of Martin Scorsese and Graham King (The Departed) comes the soaring drama The Young Victoria which chronicles Queen Victoria’s ascension to the throne, focusing on the early turbulent years of her reign and her legendary romance and marriage to Prince Albert.

Starring Emily Blunt, Rupert Friend, Paul Bettany, Miranda Richardson, Jim Broadbent and Mark Strong, The Young Victoria will be shown exclusively at Greenbelt 3 starting Sept. 30.

For Academy Award-winner Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park) who wrote the screenplay, it was the early life of the young queen that fascinated him. “Ninety nine percent of the public don’t know anything about the story of her early life and will be surprised.”

The film is set in the period from 1836, the year before Victoria ascended the throne, to 1840 the year she married Prince Albert and sets out to revise the widely held picture of Queen Victoria as an elderly widow dressed in black. “The Queen Victoria everyone knows is the older Widow of Windsor with the handkerchief on her head, a rather fat woman in black looking depressed. Very few people know about the other side of her, her early life: That she was young, that she loved dancing, that she loved music and that she was very romantic. Some girls like to have fun and she was certainly one of them,” explains Fellowes.

The early part of the film presents Victoria living in a virtual prison. Fellowes explains Victoria’s early life. “Before her 63 year reign began, Victoria had a horrible childhood. Her father died before her first birthday, leaving her mother, the Duchess of Kent, to raise the sole heir to the throne. The Duchess can never have another child who is in line for the throne because her husband is dead. She’s just got this one frail little squib who will be Queen if only she doesn’t die. This created in her a kind of neurotic protectionism, a smothering childhood where Victoria could not have her own room and had to sleep on a little cot next to her mother’s bed until she was 18. She wasn’t able to go up or down stairs without holding an adult hand. She had almost no friends. It was a terribly lonely childhood.”