Beneath all the powdered wigs, oversized dresses and lavish Baroque
architecture, The Favourite hides a gleefully
demented mean streak that doesn’t seek to punish the audience, but rather make
them uncomfortable and disoriented. Yorgos Lanthimos, the Greek auteur behind The
Lobster and The
Killing of a Sacred Deer has made a career out of bizarre, deadpan, surgical
dissections of the absurdities of human nature, but this is a first for him in
many ways. It’s his first major film that he didn’t also write, it’s his first genre
film, and it’s the first film of his that’s, dare I say it, fun to watch.
Our story follows Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) and her
intensely close relationship with her companion Lady Sarah Churchill, Duchess of
Marlborough (Rachel Weisz). As the Queen’s health is deteriorating, Sarah has
picked up the slack in her stead, becoming so powerful that not even the Prime
Minister can get and audience with Her Majesty without going through her first.
That position is challenged with the arrival of Sarah’s cousin Abigail (Emma
Stone), the daughter of a disgraced lord who must now work as a scullery maid
after her father gambled her away in a card game. She slowly but surely works
her way into Anne’s favor by pleasing her in ways that Sarah isn’t. But Sarah
isn’t having any of that, and will stop at nothing to end her rival’s
encroaching presence.
One could also argue that this is Lanthimos’s most normal
movie, but that’s like saying The Elephant
Man is the most normal David Lynch movie: technically true, but only by
comparison to the rest of his work. Lanthimos doesn’t make normal movies. He
makes challenging movies, he makes movies that aren’t everyone’s cup of tea,
but “normal” is the last word I’d use to describe him. It’s a period piece with
all the fancy costumes, sharp-tongued wit and aristocratic excess that entails,
but it’s all framed in an unconventional manner. The frequent use of Steadicam,
dolly shots, slow motion, low angle shots and fisheye lenses give the sense
that we’re stalking these characters like a shark on the verge of frenzy. Gliding
through the castle’s cavernous halls covered wall to wall in extravagant
paintings and tapestries makes the palace that’s our primary setting feel like
both an arena and a prison.
The three leading ladies are what makes this as magnetic as
it is. Although there were rumors that Queen Anne and The Duchess of
Marlborough were more than just friends even back then, here their sexual attraction
is made explicit and becomes the crux of Sarah and Abigail’s rivalry. Sarah
maintained control by showering the Queen with equal doses of praise and
condescension and keeping vital information from her. Not believing in
duplicity, she’s also incredibly blunt, even at the expense of everyone hating
her. Abigail, on the other hand, climbed up the social ladder by watching Sarah
carefully and jumping in wherever she falters, and isn’t afraid to use Sarah’s
head as a stepping stone. Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone shine in their respective
roles, but it’s Olivia Colman who steals the show. It’s comical when you
realize that these two women are fighting over the affection of a petulant woman
child who spends most of her days locked in her bedchamber playing with her pet
rabbits, stuffing her face with cake and puking it back up, crying in pain over
her frequent bouts of gout, yelling at her servants and ignoring her royal
duties. But when she eventually reveals a devastatingly tragic detail of her
past, her behavior becomes all the more understandable.
It’s Sarah and Abigail who keep the plot going, as the
majority of the plot is driven by their attempts to undermine, sabotage and
outright destroy each other. It’s All About
Eve by way of Barry Lyndon. Sarah
tries to maintain her dignity even when things get catty, while Abigail isn’t
above playing dirty. Incidentally, while the war between England and France are
used as a backdrop, the men of Parliament hardly factor into the plot at all,
mostly because they’re too preoccupied with duck races and throwing fruit at
each other to run the country. The only exceptions are the dandy Lord Harley
(Nicholas Hoult), who wants to end the war so the Queen will stop taxing his
lands and tries to recruit Abigail to his side out of their mutual hatred of
Sarah, and the lovestruck Masham (Joe Alwyn), who tries fruitlessly to win
Abigail’s heart. But at its core, it’s a woman’s war through and through.
Bottom line, The
Favourite is twisted, sharp, awkward, unwieldy, and absolutely mesmerizing.
In other words, it’s a Yorgos Lanthimos movie. A petri dish of petty jealousy,
casual cruelty, beauty and ugliness, it will leave you captivated all the way
till the very last shot. One of the year’s best, don’t miss it.
9/10
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