2018 | Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos | 120 Minutes
"You wish me to lie to you? 'Oh you look like an angel fallen from heaven, your majesty.' No! Sometimes, you look like a badger, and you can rely on me to tell you. Because I will not lie! That is love!"
Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough and adored adviser of Queen Anne, reluctantly assists her estranged cousin Abigail Hill when she arrives at the royal palace seeking employment. As Sarah enforces her political party's agenda through her relationship with the queen, drawing ire from the opposition, the increasingly despondent queen begins to direct her attention and affection towards Abigail who utilizes every tool at her disposal to rise above her station. Tensions escalate as Abigail positions herself in direct opposition to her cousin.
With a deliciously sharp screenplay by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara that reveals itself as the story of a love triangle by its second act, The Favourite takes full advantage of Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos' relentless sense of comedic timing and talent for building discomfort. Frequent chapter breaks call attention to the brisk pacing of the film with each chapter named for an amusing line of spoken dialogue. The dialogue itself is often grandiose and hilariously blunt in the same breath, giving way to blatant and purposeful anachronisms that turn up throughout the picture, accentuating the dark humor befitting Sarah and Abigail's rivalry and the tragedy that permeates Anne's life. Perhaps due to Lanthimos having no part in writing The Favourite, the stilted line delivery prevalent in his other films is practically absent in this one.
Olivia Colman is heartbreaking and truly excellent as the doltish morbidly-depressed queen. Equal parts ridiculous and sympathetic, Colman delivers an impressively controlled performance that humanizes an under-educated but well-meaning monarch stricken by pathological illness and grief. At the very top of their game, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone are delightfully cruel as Sarah and Abigail. As the film progresses, in a captivating showcase of their respective talents, the cold exterior of Weisz's Sarah is chipped away to reveal a vulnerable tenderness while conversely Stone's Abigail gradually loses all pretenses of propriety. The film also features Nicholas Hoult in a supporting role as a foppish short-tempered Tory that he plays rather convincingly.
Exploring themes of love, loss, deception, and desperation, The Favourite is as crass, challenging, and darkly funny as one would expect from a film by Yorgos Lanthimos. The picture is worth seeing just to witness the merciless and extremely amusing competition between Rachel Weisz's Sarah and Emma Stone's Abigail. However, the true highlight of the feature is Olivia Colman's simultaneously hysterical and deeply tragic performance as Queen Anne.
FRAGMENTS
- Olivia Colman and Rachel Weisz previously appeared in director Yorgos Lanthimos' 2015 film The Lobster
- Olivia Colman gained 35 pounds to play Queen Anne
- Kate Winslet was initially cast to play Sarah Churchill
- The picture was shot mostly with natural or practical lighting
- The only moment of the film in which male characters have a conversation not about women without women present is a brief exchange between two male characters regarding a duck
MCU CONNECTIONS
- Rachel Weisz (Melina Vostokoff in Black Widow)
