The Favourite (2018)
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
Written by Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara
Starring Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone, Olivia Coleman
Release Date November 23rd, 2018
Published November 20th, 2018
The Favourite stars Rachel Weisz as Lady Marlborough, aka Sara Churchill, the best friend of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman). Lady Marlborough was Queen Anne’s right hand during her reign until the two had a falling out over Lady Marlborough’s cousin, Abigail (Emma Stone), who arrived in the kingdom penniless and insinuates herself into the Queen’s good graces. Lady Marlborough is initially kind but wary of Abigail but soon the rivalry grows into a mutual disdain.
What director Yorgos Lanthimos does brilliantly with this story is not merely allow his characters to be catty or stereotypical. Lady Marlborough appears especially intelligent and politically adept. Abigail is conniving and cunning but it comes from a well-honed instinct for survival and not some simplified notion of how women act toward other women. Abigail has known no other way of life than survival, having grown up with a father who once lost her in a card game.
Tiny little nasty details punctuate numerous scenes in The Favourite and the delight with which these brilliant actresses deliver these points, such as the card game anecdote, is glorious. Stone and Weisz relish the nastiness they share with one another as they battle for the Queen’s affections, quite literally, as both women find their way into the salacious Queen’s bed, one because she genuinely cares and the other because it is advantageous. You can watch and find out which.
Nicholas Hoult rounds out the main cast as Robert Harley the 1st Earl of Oxford. He’s in a war of wits with Lady Marlborough over the ongoing war with France and how his landed gentry are paying for the war while the city-dwelling shopkeepers benefit from providing supplies via contract. There is a touch of modern politics to the power plays between Marlborough and Hartley and Weisz and Hoult have tremendous fun biting back and forth.
Olivia Colman portrays Queen Anne as a very sad and often ill woman. Her affinity for rabbits has a sad backstory that informs the film’s stunning ending, one of the most fascinating endings of the year undoubtedly. Throughout the film Colman’s Anne is a powerfully weak presence, pushed hither and yon by whichever powerful personality is leading the way at that moment. She seeks only pleasure until even her greatest pleasures lack any authentic joy.
For director Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favourite is the most mainstream movie he’s made in his relatively young career. His American features, The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer have been so deliberately esoteric that it is some kind of wonder that he was allowed to make them. The Lobster is literally about a man’s journey toward potentially being turned into a lobster if he can’t find love. As for The Killing of a Sacred Deer, as much as I found it riveting, it’s more of an exercise in style than it is the kind of thriller a movie studio would want you to believe it to be.
The Favourite is therefore easily more mainstream just by virtue of not being deliberately off-putting. That plus who doesn’t love a good bit of palace intrigue. The Favourite follows in the footsteps of films like Elizabeth or Marie Antoinette or any other movie to do with the inner sanctum of royalty. America may have left the Queen behind but we’ve remained fascinated by the history, mystery and especially the dysfunction behind the scenes of royalty since the day we left the monarchy behind.
The Favourite has all sorts of juicy, gossipy, details delivered with nasty glee by actresses who know just how to bite off a good insult or connive their way to another deliberate obfuscation of their rival. We love to hate characters like these while secretly delighting in their bad behavior because it’s so wonderfully entertaining. Weisz especially is playing a character of remarkable charisma who always speaks her mind and is always the smartest person in the room, until she gets a little too smart.
The Favourite is one of the smartest and most devilishly, darkly clever movies of the year. Right up until that ending I mentioned earlier which will divide audiences between those who admire how daring and artful it is and those who won’t quite know how to feel. The Favourite leaves you with a great deal to think about and not much of it is pleasant. It worked on me as a bleak grace note for a story with no winners, only survivors.
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