It's been a year of ups and downs for Emily Blunt: Though Sunshine Cleaning was one of 2009's biggest indie successes, The Wolf Man was pushed back to next year, and her plan to star as Black Widow in Iron Man 2 was thwarted when Fox instead exerted its option to place her in the Jack Black comedy Gulliver's Travels (forcing the role to be recast with Scarlett Johansson). Still, Blunt has one potential bright spot coming up in The Young Victoria, a period romance where she plays Queen Victoria.
The film's already come out in the UK, where it was well-received, but it'll be handled in the U.S. by Apparition, Bob Berney's new outfit. "It feels like an Anne Hathaway breakout role," Berney told Indiewire. "Emily Blunt could be very awards-friendly."
The challenge for Apparition, then, will be to sell Victoria as a more romantic Elizabeth (a strategy that the Keira Knightley vehicle The Duchess couldn't quite nail last year). Based on this overseas trailer, I'm intrigued if not blown away; helping matters is the fact I'm a big fan of Blunt's, and director Jean-Marc Vallée showed a lot of promise with his last film, C.R.A.Z.Y. It shouldn't be hard to lure elderly Academy members to a costume drama like this one, and it may need their help for general audiences to follow suit.
VERDICT: Interested.