A Royal Night Out review: The Queen in a rom-com? We are not amused

Director: Julian Jarrold; Screenwriter: Trevor De Silva; Starring: Sarah Gadon, Bel Powley , Emily Watson, Jack Reynor, Rupert Everett; Running time: 97 mins; Certificate: 12A

Her Majesty the Queen may very well be amused by A Royal Night Out, only because it deviates so far from what might plausibly have happened on VE night, 1945, when she and Princess Margaret celebrated the end of the war in Europe among the commoners on the streets of London. Director Julian Jarrold makes no bones about the fact-less, fancy-freeness of it all, turning a royal anecdote into a screwball comedy of sorts, but where's the punchline?

Up-and-coming Canadian actress Sarah Gadon is a dead ringer for the future monarch "Lilibet" and she imbues her with the requisite youthful whimsy as she yearns to be among the people on this most special night - before the burden of having to rule over them. But Jarrold (Kinky Boots, Becoming Jane) doesn't dare do anything too radical with the public perception of HRH, which in a film that is otherwise so wacky, feels like a copout. Margaret, on the other hand, is played in very broad comic strokes by a googly-eyed Bel Powley (of TV's Benidorm) - the classic comedy patsy whose fecklessness sparks a chase across town.

What Jarrold does well is to recreate scenes of joyful chaos; strangers kissing, cheering, chugging booze, even doing the conga around Trafalgar Square and dragging Lilibet along with them (this is one of the few details that actually has its basis in a rare interview given by the Queen). Amid the throng, the sisters become separated and Margaret, being the dizzy pie-eyed princess that she's portrayed as here, inevitably finds herself in a series of unsavoury incidents. As the responsible one, Lilibet embarks on a mission to track her down, which means (gulp) taking the bus and she is in turn pursued by her bumbling military escorts.

There are pale shades of '80s yuppie comedies, too, like Something Wild and After Hours, but those films deliver their kicks from seeing stiff collars come completely undone. Throughout, Lilibet is just too decorous.

Inevitably, Jarrold gets a giggle out of the fact that Elizabeth doesn't have any loose change, which is where her fictional leading man steps in. Jack Reynor (Transformers: Age of Extinction) plays a battle-weary soldier who helps Lilibet navigate the seedy streets of Soho. He has no idea who he is dealing with, of course, (Elizabeth in her ATS garb appears to be just another member of the British armed forces), but more obviously, this relationship is going nowhere. Jarrold aims for a sweetly innocent happy ending, but he's also thwarted by a lack of sparks between Gadon and Reynor. Pitching this as a 1940s-style Hepburnesque rom-com sets up high expectations for witty banter, except the actors don't have much to work with.

There are pale shades of '80s yuppie comedies, too, like Something Wild and After Hours, but those films deliver their kicks from seeing stiff collars come completely undone. Throughout, Lilibet is just too decorous. The writers shy away from the really juicy bits, too, such as the fact that one of the girls' real-life escorts on the night was the King's equerry, RAF man Peter Townsend, who later caused a sensation by romancing Princess Margaret. The riotous spectacle of Elizabeth pushing a wheelbarrow across Hyde Park, containing her legless sister, is just another hint of what the film might have been - if only Jarrold had really cut loose.