Having just read Julia Baird’s fantastic tome Victoria The Queen, I was fascinated to learn more about the sudden elevation of Abdul Karim and the relationship between them.

And while the Indian cleric inveigles is way into the Queen’s affections, the film Victoria and Abdul remains a light-hearted take on their unique relationship that makes much of the royal family’s dislike of Abdul but really fails to unpack the reasons behind its longevity.

In Baird’s account, the royal household feared Abdul’s influence over the Queen - particularly around the plight of Muslim minorities in British-occupied India - and even suspected him of leaking state secrets to English enemies in British-controlled Afghanistan.

These suspicions are barely raised in the film, which I think is to its detriment.

The royal family’s misgivings about Abdul, who appears in the film as a harmless and devoted subject, are largely attributed to stuffy English aristocratic snobbery, petty jealousy and racism.

Judy Dench, at 82, plays the world-weary Queen Victoria - a character she is synonymous with playing - and brings the right mix of feisty, stubborn and philosophical. It’s Dench who will bring people into the theatres for Victoria and Abdul.

Abdul, played capably by Ali Fazal, wins the Queen’s affections by chance after being selected to travel to London to present the Queen with a special coin at her Golden Jubilee.

The movie is both touching and comical and there is plenty of outrage from the British court about the sudden elevation of Abdul to the position of the Queen’s “Munshi”, or teacher.

As their relationship blossoms on screen, the Queen learns Urdu and takes Abdul into her confidence.

In defiance of even the audience’s expectations, nothing it seems, will deter the Queen from her friendship with Abdul.

Not even scandal about his role as a Muslim man in the Indian uprisings or the knowledge from the Queen’s doctor, James Reid, that he is riddled with gonorrhoea.

Abdul remains an attentive and selfless servant who is helplessly devoted to the monarch. They travel to Scotland and Europe together, his wife is brought over to England from India and his loyalty is rewarded with titles and standing.

Karim’s sudden banishment to his home country following the death of Queen Victoria - at the hands of the villainous Bertie (Eddie Izzard) - is borne out in historical fact.

What is left out of the film is that Karim returned to Agra with his wife as a wealthy man and lived on land the queen procured for him, dying at the age of 46 in 1909.

The new King Edward VII, Bertie, destroyed Karim’s papers and with it, many of the remaining traces of the friendship between his mother and the Indian clerk.

Victoria and Abdul is based on the book by Indian journalist Shrabani Basu, based on Karim’s story.

She travelled to Pakistan where she was able to pour through his original journals, still preserved by Karim’s family. As she tells it, many of the moments in the film - including a particularly memorable scene with a mango - were taken directly from the diaries.

I haven’t read Basu’s book, but with my curiosity about this unconventional pairing not yet whet, that’s on the agenda.

The film is really enjoyable, but ultimately handles an intriguing subject at face value, and I am left wanting more depth.

Victoria and Abdul