"A Royal Night Out" (2015)

Two days ago in this space, I wrote about the 2016 movie "Carrie Pilby" and its charming young star, Bel Powley.  In researching her, I learned that she had appeared in a 2015 film called "A Royal Night Out" that had an intriguing premise: On VE Day, May 8, 1945, in London, the Royal Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret begged their parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to be allowed to leave the confines of Buckingham Palace to be able to celebrate the momentous occasion with "all the people."

In historical fact, Elizabeth and Margaret did leave the Palace that night, stood in the crowds in front of the Palace and walked the streets incognito as part of a group of sixteen people that included military personnel.  Elizabeth wore her military uniform and Margaret was only 14 at the time.  Neither was recognized and they were both back in the Palace by 1:00 AM.  (Officially, the night "never happened", and the future Queen spent the evening at an affair at the Ritz Hotel.)  That wouldn't have made much of a movie, however, so screenwriters Trevor De Silva and Kevin Hood and director Julian Jarrold takes on a "well-what-if-this-would-have-happened" journey wherein the Princesses shake their bodyguards, get separated, and spend the night trying to find each other, a journey that has them riding on public buses, takes them through Trafalgar Square fountains, a stuffy nightclub, a whorehouse (there is a great scene when a hungover Margaret recounts the evening to her parents and asks "just what is a Knocking Shop?"), dodgy parts of town, a ballroom where they dance to swing music, and other assorted adventures before they somehow manage to return to Buckingham Palace just as the sun comes up.  The future Queen learns the lessons of what everyday Londoners - she hears the King's VE Day address on a radio in a pub - think of the Monarchy and the effects of war on the many who served in it, courtesy of a young hunk of an airman named Jack. 

It was farfetched and kind of ridiculous, but it had its comic and charming moments, and it was highlighted by the young actresses who played Elizabeth and Margaret, Sarah Gadon and the aforementioned Bel Powley.

Sarah Gadon

as

"Subaltern Lieutenant Windsor"

Powley and Gadon

as 

The Princesses Margaret and Elizabeth 

"A Royal Night Out" gets Two Stars from The Grandstander.