The Favourite – first look review | Little White Lies

Festivals

The Favourite – first look review

30 Aug 2018

Words by Adam Woodward

Elaborate Victorian-style costumes and candlelight in dimly lit interior.
Elaborate Victorian-style costumes and candlelight in dimly lit interior.
Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz vie for Olivia Colman’s affec­tions in this erot­ic 18th cen­tu­ry romp from Yor­gos Lanthimos.

Are you some­one who craves more han­ky-panky from your peri­od films? Have you long yearned to hear some­one utter the phrase cunt struck” in a lav­ish cos­tume dra­ma? Then strap your­self in for the lat­est high farce from Greek jester-in-chief Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos, a regal romp set in 18th cen­tu­ry Eng­land that may just be the most absurd­ly enter­tain­ing thing he’s ever done.

Olivia Col­man is on sub­lime form as Queen Anne, the belea­guered British monarch who reigned for 12 years from 1702 to 1714. Her life was plagued by heartache and ill health, and Lan­thi­mos, Col­man and screen­writer Deb­o­rah Davis play this for laughs to good effect by char­ac­ter­is­ing her as a sick­ly, infan­tilised recluse – sur­round­ed by peo­ple but des­per­ate­ly lone­ly, house­bound and bored out of her wits, prone to child­ish out­bursts and vul­gar dis­plays of wealth (in one scene she gorges on an enor­mous cake as a ser­vant boy stands beside her, sick buck­et at the ready).

When she’s not throw­ing tantrums or suf­fer­ing debil­i­tat­ing attacks of gout, Anne shows lit­tle inter­est in the small mat­ter of rul­ing the coun­try, or the ongo­ing war with France which appears to have reached a tac­ti­cal stale­mate. She sits idly by as her strings are pulled every which way by Tory Prime Min­is­ter Sid­ney Godol­phin (The Thick of Its James Smith) and promi­nent Whig politi­cian Robert Harley (Nicholas Hoult), a preen­ing, foul-mouthed tyke with ideas above his station.

Rachel Weisz puts in a game shift as Sarah Churchill, aka Lady Marl­bor­ough, who refers to the Queen by the pet name Mrs Mor­ley and effec­tive­ly has the run of her offi­cial res­i­dence, Kens­ing­ton Palace. As their close rela­tion­ship and co-depen­den­cy are brought to the fore, Lan­thi­mos indulges in a spot of (pos­si­ble) his­tor­i­cal revi­sion­ism and the film takes a left turn into roman­tic tragedy. Mean­while, Lady Marlborough’s posi­tion is chal­lenged by a pret­ty young maid named Abi­gail (Emma Stone), a lapsed aris­to­crat who arrives on the scene cov­ered in muck but is soon scrubbed up and charming/​shagging her way back up the social ladder.

Opulent interior with a woman in a black dress sitting on a chaise, surrounded by ornate tapestries and decorative floral arrangements.

The Favourite is a sort of Down­ton of the damned, where the pow­er dynam­ic is con­stant­ly shift­ing and each key play­er shows signs of psy­chot­ic self-delu­sion. Every­one is look­ing to gain an advan­tage by what­ev­er nefar­i­ous means they deem nec­es­sary, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to black­mail, trea­son, entrap­ment, col­lu­sion, poi­son­ing and attempt­ed mur­der. It’s also a film about the trans­for­ma­tive and destruc­tive nature of love, and the hurt peo­ple are capa­ble of inflict­ing when jeal­ousy and resent­ment take hold.

Nat­ur­al light­ing and frame-warp­ing wide angle shots serve to height­en the sur­re­al atmos­phere while accen­tu­at­ing the obscene opu­lence of the set­ting. On a pure­ly super­fi­cial lev­el these styl­is­tic choic­es call to mind Stan­ley Kubrick’s Bar­ry Lyn­don and A Clock­work Orange, yet Lan­thi­mos owes a greater debt to Peter Greenaway’s 1982 mas­ter­piece The Draughtsman’s Con­tract and, to a less­er extent, Richard Lester’s irrev­er­ent take on The Three Muska­teers from 1973. The main dif­fer­ence being that there isn’t quite as much going on here behind the paint­ed faces and extrav­a­gant frocks.

As with Lan­thi­mos’ pre­vi­ous Eng­lish-lan­guage fea­tures, The Lob­ster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Favourite boasts some mem­o­rable one-lin­ers and a few out­ra­geous­ly fun­ny moments, but there’s nev­er the sense that the direc­tor is push­ing him­self, or that he’s ready to step out­side of his com­fort zone. His idio­syn­crat­ic style is an acquired taste that’s start­ing to go stale, and as such this is one of those films that works like a charm in the moment but whose spell quick­ly wears off. The last shot is a doozy though – a lin­ger­ing close-up that reminds us who real­ly has the upper hand in this whole sor­did affair.

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