In films ‘Victoria & Abdul’ and ‘American Made,’ Life is Stranger than Fiction

Washington, September 30: Stephen Frears' heartwarming drama Victoria & Abdul is about the deep friendship between Queen Victoria and her Indian servant Abdul Karim between 1887 and 1901, and Doug Liman's American Made about Barry Seal, a 1970s audacious American pilot, who, during the Nicaraguan Crisis worked for the CIA, the DEA and the Colombian cartel.

As different as these two films are, they are both based on true stories, proving yet again that often life is stranger than fiction. Both films feature intelligent plots and superb acting.

Victoria & Abdul

Stephen Frears' film Victoria and Abdul, opens in 1887, with the festivities for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, celebrating her 50-year reign.

Abdul Karim, a young Muslim clerk from Agra, India, is sent to the banquet all the way from India to present the queen with a gift from India, a ceremonial coin. To the dismay of Queen Victoria's courtiers, the Indian servant strikes a deep friendship with the octogenarian Queen Victoria, defying class and racial boundaries.

According to the movie, Abdul Karim impressed the British sovereign with his depth of spirit and good looks. Soon the unlikely friends became inseparable, discussing philosophy, literature, even Indian cuisine. In a span of 14 years, Abdul Karm became the queen's confidant and munshi, her teacher, in Urdu.

But the queen's courtesans and her family, sidelined by Abdul, questioned her sanity and considered her removal.

Historian and author Shrabani Basu based her book of the same title on the queen's journals in Urdu and on Karim's private diary. Basu discovered Abdul Karim's personal diary in possession of Karim's surviving nephew Abdul Rashid in 2010, over a century after the queen's death.

This was the only document on the relationship between royal and servant that survived the wrath of Queen Victoria's children. Immediately after her death in 1901, the royals evicted Queen Victoria's munshi, burned everything he had received from the queen and swiftly shipped him and his family to India. In 1909 Abdul Karim died in Agra leaving his diary as his only testimonial of his deep friendship with the empress.

Director Frears offers captivating cinematography while Dame Judi Dench portrays a free-spirited Queen Victoria and Indian actor Ali Fazal embodies a charming and loyal Adbul Karim.

Though the film does not depict a romantic relationship between the two, it does hint to it. Dench describes the queen's reaction to Karim:

"She had a ready eye for somebody good-looking, which he is very, so it was easy to imagine a kind of tired, poor person suddenly looking up and seeing this wonderful good-looking young man. How lovely somebody at last beautiful to look at," Dench said.

But, author Basu says, "At the heart of this book is a story of friendship, a friendship of two different people from two different specters of this world, one is the Empress of India, one is a clerk from Agra jail, and somewhere they have a bond they find this link and a common space."

American Made

American Made, by Bourne Identity filmmaker Doug Liman, offers a satirical look at the political crisis in Nicaragua.

It shows the involvement of the United States in the revolution during the late 1970s and 1980s through the perspective of pilot Barry Seal, who, for the right price, delivers guns to Nicaragua on behalf of the CIA, and cocaine into the U.S. on behalf of the Colombian cartel. Somewhere in between, Seal also works for the DEA.

Tom Cruise offers an engaging interpretation as Barry Seal, piloting the plane and doing all the stunts throughout the film. Cruise explains what drew him to the character:

"He just couldn't help himself," Cruise said. "He just had to live this life. He literally when you are talking about someone living on the edge, he didn't even realize he was on the edge. He was just living life and not really thinking of necessary ramifications and what's going to happen."

As in most of his action film projects, Cruise pushes his boundaries.

"I don't make a movie just to make a movie," he said. "It's not what interests me. What interests me is the passion of cinema, the passion of storytelling. That's when it gets very exciting, not just a job. I love this too much." (VOA)