Film Review: “The Favourite”
Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2018 feature “The Favourite“ is a film that I think deserves more flowers. Sure, it got some when it was released, and Olivia Colman won a well-deserved Oscar for Best Actress. But to me, it is not enough! I tend to like Lanthimos’s movies overall, but none of them have stuck with me like “The Favourite“ has. It reflects such a specific niche that I really enjoy in terms of humor, style, drama and character dynamics.
Set in 18th-century England and based very loosely on true events, Queen Anne (Colman) is apathetic and tired of her job, preferring to race ducks and play with her rabbits. She’s being more or less forced into war with France, has had over a dozen miscarriages, and is suffering from gout- leaving her weird, neurotic and plagued by self-pity. Despite this, she is one of the only characters in the film with any redeeming qualities (which is not a bad thing! I love that every character in this is a menace). Colman has the best performance in a film FILLED with them. She commits to the bit 100 percent, and it works so well for both black comedy and drama. You can tell she was having a blast with this role.
Supporting the queen as a political advisor, confidant and lover is Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz). The two have been friends since childhood, and Sarah basically runs the
country using her influence over the queen. The pair’s sadomasochistic yet tender relationship is pretty consistent until Sarah’s impoverished cousin Abigail Hill (Emma Stone) arrives seeking employment. Formerly of noble standing, her father gambled her away as a teenager, forcing her into a relationship, and sending her into poverty. She hopes that Sarah, as her cousin, can get her an in at the palace as a scullery maid, an unrelenting and miserable job that is only slightly better than what she was dealing with before (in some ways, in others, not so much). Initially appearing well-meaning and naive, we quickly learn that there is a lot more to Abigail, especially in regard to her ambitions. Stone is excellent at portraying the believably disarming and manipulative shades of this character, and her chemistry with both Weisz and Colman is great. Abigail finds an in with the queen by giving her an herb to effectively treat her gout, and she quickly begins to usurp Sarah’s status as the favorite — for which Sarah has her stripped and whipped. After learning of Sarah and the queen’s sexual relationship, Abigail kindles a relationship of her own with the queen, which, of course, Sarah discovers. The two spend the rest of the film languishing in a brutal and ridiculous struggle for power over each other and Queen Anne’s affection.
From the queen and the opposition to the chambermaids, everyone’s appearance and standing is dependent on performance. So, equal parts hilarious, hot and cruel, every character’s favorite thing to inflict and experience is humiliation. Thus, one being made a spectacle, whether for pleasure or punishment (or both), is a frequent occurrence. Nothing is one thing in this film. Power is submission; comedy is drama; pain is pleasure; love is domination; crassness is decorum. The lush setting of this theatricality, the palace, is somehow both looming and claustrophobic, emphasized by Lanthimos’s strange lens choices, angles and close-ups. The costuming is beautiful, with the massive powdered wigs and gowns only making the rooms feel smaller and somehow making the characters both much more and less ridiculous.
Profane and absurd, “The Favourite“ is a hilarious, brilliantly written and decadent examination of domination and submission, love and power, and the deadly serious and the comical.
Yorgos didn’t have to do all that, but he chose to for us.