If there's one word in which to describe director Yorgos Lanthimos’ filmography, it would be “weird.” The director’s subject material tends to be some of the more eclectic in recent memory. The Lobster was about a hotel that forces single people to find a partner or else turn into an animal of their choosing. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is about a boy in with unexplained supernatural powers that forces a doctor to kill one of his own family members. The subject matter can be a bit touchy at times and the ways in which the stories are told tend to be quite eccentric, with shades of absurdist, dark humor employed, making for some fairly uncomfortable moments. This is by no means a bad thing, but this has caused the director to gain more of a cult following, with his films being beloved more so by devoted film fans than your average moviegoer.
The Favourite allows the director to step into the mainstream for the first time, switching time periods and tackling some more straightforward subject matter. The film takes place in 18th century England and follows the frail Queen Anne (Olivia Colman), whose mental health is deteriorating and bases a lot of her decisions on the influence of her confidante Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz), the power-hungry Duchess of Marlborough. When Sarah’s younger cousin Abigail (Emma Stone) arrives, looking for work, she is soon used as a spy by Sarah’s rival Robert Harley (Nicholas Hoult) to find out a way to strip Sarah of her power. Abigail soon finds herself in good standing with the Queen and begins to look for ways in which she can get Sarah out of the picture and become the ailing Queen’s new favourite.
The scenery change to 18th century England does at first raise some concern. Period pieces such as these tend to be a bit drier than your average film. In terms of costume and set design, they usually are always very visually appealing, with bright and vivid colors, but that’s usually the best thing they’ll have going for them. Dialogue typically isn’t as enticing, and because of the more limited resources back during these times, there’s not as much action. These films are typically much slower burns, with plenty of dialogue-driven scenes that are used to keep the story moving, and only so many dramatic beats occurring.
And The Favourite does find itself in this trap at times. There are moments in which it feels like a scene may drag on for just a bit longer than it needs to. A lot of the political struggle is explained through dialogue and while it can be engaging at times, there are a fair share of moments where it starts losing our attention, and some of the movie has to build back up some of the dramatic tension it was crafting.
However, these moments do not dominate the entire movie. If anything, Lanthimos does his best to shy away from making this just another period piece. While the film does have scenes consisting of drier dialogue, it’s actually quite funny for the most part. And what’s even more incredible about this feat is the fact that it’s actually remains fairly grounded in reality during these moments. Due to the subject matter, comedies set in these older time periods tend to work better when they’re parodies, like Monty Python and the Holy Grail. However, while The Favourite can have some more over-the-top moments here and there (including one moment not related to the rest of the movie that seemingly comes out of nowhere), most of its humor relies on witty exchanges and some of the cat-and-mouse antics between Abigail and Sarah, as they try to one-up each other. The dialogue can be a bit subtle and isn’t exactly immediately quotable, but it’s still quite clever and gives the movie a nice sense of fun.
The only issue with the film trying to stay grounded is the fact that it seemingly held itself back from getting a little more extreme in how Abigail and Sarah competed for the Queen’s favour. While we did get some solid back-and-forth between the two, the stakes feel like they only get raised to a certain degree. Many of their attempts to one-up each other mostly feel small in scale for most of the movie. It’s only by the end that we get to see one or two big moments in which both characters go to extremes to put the other down. And when the movie begins to gain more traction than ever in what we think will turn into an all-out war between the two, it quickly winds down and finds itself at an end. While we wouldn’t want to see it go into parody levels of extreme, we could have easily gotten the moments from the end of the movie much sooner, leaving room for some more back-and-forth between Sarah and Abigail. While it’s a bit disappointing the film didn't go down this route, the moments we get are still engaging to watch.
The film's biggest strength lies in its performances. Namely, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz. Despite the limits of their trickery only go so far, the two are still an incredibly fun pair to watch. Stone is particularly fun to see play against her normal type. Typically more of a “good girl” type, playing extremely likable protagonists, she starts off in The Favourite as that same sort of character. However, she soon steps out of her comfort zone as Abigail adapts to her surrounding environment. The Favourite finds Stone shedding her normal image into someone who's much more cunning and witty, while still maintaining much of the likability that has catapulted her to a star.
Weisz, meanwhile, is this film’s antagonist, and is clearly seen having an absolute blast in a nice change of pace for her. The controlling, power-hungry Sarah is even more cunning than Stone’s Abigail, and is much more sinister, resorting to tactics like blackmail and trickery to get her way. She gets to let quite loose a few times, though never crosses the line into cartoon-like territory, allowing her to still come across as a fairly believable character.
On the opposite side, of the three leads, the one who ends up being the most grating is Olivia Colman as the Queen. Slowly losing her mind throughout the course of the movie, Queen Anne is the most prone to extremely loud outbursts, impulsive decision-making, and abruptly changing her mind at a moment's notice, and will immediately scream and yell when she's having an episode, and these moments come frequently.
While this is meant to be the point of her character and it's a huge plot point - considering the Queen’s health is a big reason why Sarah is able to maintain so much power - we don't necessarily find ourselves drawn to her. When she is in the right state of mind, she never does anything truly likable, instead whining and complaining most of the time. So when she does have an outburst - rather than highlight how sad it is that she’s losing her sanity - the movie is simply just taking a character who draws our ire and makes her even more aggravating to watch. She’s nothing more than a pawn in the game between Sarah and Abigail and doesn’t truly stand out in her own right.
Despite this, The Favourite is still a very enjoyable film, and is able to inject a sense of pure entertainment into a subgenre of films that typically feel the least engaging to watch. The laughs may not be non-stop, but they do come quite frequently, and derive from some oddball exchanges as well as the back-and-forth power struggle between its two leads. The film contains some standout performances from both Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz, both finding themselves at their most relaxed and having just as much of a good time as the audience has when watching this. A change of pace for director Yorgos Lanthimos, yet still containing plenty of his trademark quirks, The Favourite is another solid entry into the director’s growing filmography.
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