For a kid growing up in Canada, her name meant a day off from school, an excuse to set off firecrackers and run amok past bedtime. Later, in the pages of history texts, she became a profile like Whistler's mother, in the same widow's black but more substantial, three lumps of a seated snowman with a little doily on her head like a distaff cockscomb. Queen Victoria, history's longest serving monarch, gave her name to an adjective synonymous not with power or prestige or magnificence but with choking collars and fusty parlors. In these days of royal libidinousness and hanky-wringing, Victoria seems as steady as marble.

Which is why Mrs. Brown is the perfect title for the perfect film about Queen Victoria. The drabness of it plays on our preconceptions of the woman and yet adds an element of mystery. Victoria is one of history's famous widows. Who then was Mr. Brown?

When Victoria's Albert died, she removed herself from society and took the royal household with her. At a time when the monarchy was diminishing as a political force, her grief-induced isolation only encouraged those who would abolish her title and kind. Her advisers, desperate for a solution to her woe, hit on the idea of giving her a pet, something to comfort her and yet remind her of the good times she spent with Albert before his demise. The pet was a Highland Scot named John Brown, Albert's loyal hunting guide and a servant in the stables at the royal palace Balmoral in Scotland. He was summoned to London, where it was hoped a ride on his pony might break the Queen from her slump, as her private secretary narrates, "through the sentimental though deeply held view that all Highlanders are good for one's health."

As in The Madness Of King George (Victoria's grandfather -- he nearly matched her reign), it's the whole milieu which makes this film hum, with measured secondary characters, precise scene structures -- no time-chewing montage here -- that build out from its impressive central performance. As Nigel Hawthorne gave George a blunt vigor, Judi Dench (that's Dame Judi Dench) imbues Victoria with a brittle calm, and the filmmakers surround her with a cast of such convincing kowtowers and forelock tuggers that when Billy Connolly's Mr. Brown strides into the picture, the atmosphere shatters, and cast and audience stop as one to stare.

Mr. Brown was definitely not a pet. Rather than submitting to the patronizing courtiers, he simply ignored them and did what he pleased, including addressing Her Britannic Majesty as "woman." Connolly, a stand-up performer of excoriating wit, joins Robbie Coltrane in providing convincing proof that the only comedians who can hack it as dramatic actors are Scots.

This is a fascinating portrait of royal character: a woman, whose position meant that no one could contradict her, proves herself still more powerful by choosing to submit to the will of her absolute inferior. This isn't Marie Antoinette playing milkmaid at Versailles; Victoria gladly accompanied Brown for a dinner visit at the home of some local rustics.

Director John Madden and screenwriter Jeremy Brock have paced the film perfectly, so that just when the Brown relationship has reached its climax (don't get too excited) Benjamin Disraeli, the prime minister most favored by Victoria, asserts himself. As played by Anthony Sher, the man seems to step into existence. It's a performance that seems almost ludicrously dandyish until you see him huffing and puffing along a Highland path, 600 miles from the civilization he knows, studying the broad back of this noble savage Brown.

Disraeli, recognizing Brown's sway over the Queen, uses his own great charm to convince the loyal servant to urge Victoria back to London and her preeminent position in the eyes of her subjects.

As only the best biographical films do, Mrs. Brown doesn't attempt to show it all but rather just enough to whet the appetite for further investigation. The profile finally turns and reveals a human face: We are amused, after all.

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