The Favourite
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
Starring Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone, Nicholas Hoult
Reviewed by Michael Dalton
[rating: 4/5]
It would seem that for the time being director Yorgos Lanthimos has dispensed with titles for his films where the mention of animals lent a shiver. Dogtooth, The Lobster, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer were all films to be viewed as metaphorical and diabolical. Folded into the narrative of those films, all cowritten by Lanthimos with Efthymis Filippou, were teeth, all sharp and tinged with perverse humour. Now, and to great acclaim in this overcrowded award season, Lanthimos has delivered The Favourite. It sounds clean and above board, the screenplay is by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, and the setting is, unlike the bizarre alternate universes of his animal trilogy, 18thcentury England. As it turns out it’s anything but clean and no one plays this game above board. This is a twisted, disorienting tale of ambition and, as is always the case in such games, ruthless. It’s a nasty little story but fun, and riddled with dangerous liaisons.
Usually Lanthimos’s films have males taking centre stage but this round belongs to the ladies. Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) sits astride the throne. She is gluttonous, full of self-loathing and convinced she’s a horror, and assisted, in every way you can imagine, by Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Wiesz). If anything this duchy pulls rank and calls the shots more than we’re used to in tales of high court. Queen Anne’s hierarchial speeches are stilted and unstructured but you can be sure Sarah is there to assure her all went well. “You were brilliant”, she assures her lady in soothing tones. So cranky is this queen, she bellows at a small orchestra playing to her from the lawn to cut it out. Skirting around the edges and hoping for a piece of the throne himself is Lord Harley (a deliciously spiteful Nicholas Hoult in obscene wigs and pounds of pancake and lipstick). “A man must look pretty”, he declares. But does he? Delusion is the name of the game in this oversized castle. But there’s one more player about to arrive, covered in mud and surrounded by flies, to upend their lives. Her name is Abigail Hill (Emma Stone), a relative of Sarah’s, poor and hoping for employment. After burning her hands on lye while scrubbing the kitchen floor, she spots a way into Her Majesty’s favour when she daringly applies a soothing paste to her aching gout. That favour is warmly welcomed and a cruel battle begins between Sarah and Abigail for their queen’s affections.
This is a different affair for Lanthimos. His previous films have been anything but lucid (Dogtooth was a disquieting tale about a mother and father who raised their children in a completely misdirected fashion only to have the experiment go haywire) but The Favourite, even with bent cinematography to warp the action, comes on with a different kind of energy. Forthright in its twisted virtues, flavoursome in its nastiness, and visually lurid, he never misses a beat when its time for the sleaze and depravity. Watch for a scene where a plump man is the game of the evening. Naked, grinning, and revelling in the humiliation, he shuffles about as a bunch of aristocrats hurl soft fruit at him. Lanthimos brings the sadism (as usual), but he brings the masochism too. Sex is often a duty to be endured here, as Abigail, who seems interested in everything but, distractedly services her new husband while discussing more pressing matters. “Did you come to seduce me or me rape me?” she calmly asks him in an early scene. As for the performances, part of the fun of The Favourite is picking your favourite. Colman, Wiesz, and Stone, all in bitch mode, are a terrible trio. Checking for a pulse may help here but surprisingly it is Colman who comes off as the most sympathetic. Manipulative and slyly delighted at the competition she starts, more than anything, she wants to love and be loved and when Lady Sarah (Wiesz is an absolute hoot, marching about in male drag and shooting game), exits the scene mysteriously, she pines while Abigail (have Stone’s saucer eyes ever looked so lethal?) patiently waits for her plan to come full circle. Does it work? Lanthimos keeps us hooked and baited to the last frame. Did I mention the rabbits? Lest we forget Lanthimos’s bestial fetish, there are seventeen of them, holding court, alongside their queen. Unlike her subjects, they mean no harm.
