The Favourite (Review)
The Favourite Proves to Be One of the Best Films of the Year.
December usually signals a rush of last-minute Oscar contenders frantically doing battle to woo the Academy. So far this Oscar season, there is one clear front-runner for a number of potential awards, The Favourite. As a critic, I try not to let word or mouth persuade me before I see a movie. Having finally gotten a chance to see The Favourite I can say that everything you’ve probably heard about this phenomenal film is true. It features some of the finest performances I’ve seen all year, especially from the two leads Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone. However, it’s Olivia Coleman who left me awe-struck with her career-defining performance as Queen Anne.
The Favourite is a film featuring some of the most duplicitous characters I’ve seen on the big screen all year. At the center of the story are Lady Sarah (Weisz) and Abigail (Stone) two women in the service of Queen Anne desperately fighting to be, you guessed it, the favorite. The entire film focuses on the two undermining and attempting to sabotage each other in order not to be cast out in the cold. Of course, this is all greatly amusing for Anne who seems ignorant to their conniving ways. However, it happens at the worst possible time as England finds itself at war with France and the welfare of the country becomes a toy in the games of manipulation the three finds themselves playing. More or less, The Favourite is a movie that shows exactly why the people tended to have such disdain for the bourgeoisie.
Of course, you can’t ignore the subtext of the film when it comes to the relationship Anne has with Sarah and Abigail. The two are vying to the be her favorite, but Anne is looking for someone a bit more than just a close friend. Let’s just say that Anne is the sort of Queen that likes confidants with benefits. However, that just makes the game all the more intense between the three. While Abigail is willing to do whatever it takes to get what she wants, there are moments where Lady Sarah seems to have a genuine connection with the queen. It’s an interesting element to be sure and serves as a perfect metaphor for Stone’s Abigail who is essentially sleeping her way to the top in order not to be a prostitute.
Director Yorgos Lanthimos left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth last year with The Killing of a Sacred Deer. However, The Favourite is almost as unrecognizable as a Lanthimos film. The performances might be subdued, but there is still a great deal of charisma in the characters in the story. Weisz plays a blunt and straightforward advisor to the Queen, refusing, for the most part, to humor the Queen by bowing to her eccentricities. This causes Sarah to come across as callous but gives her plenty of opportunities to show off her viper-like tongue. Opposite of her is Abigail who is much more willing to do whatever it takes in order to secure her future. While these two are both out to basically get the same thing the contrasts in their approach clearly defines their characters from the get-go and they have plenty of room to grow from there. This is a far cry from the subdued performances I saw in Sacred Deer and The Lobster, and I think that is a huge improvement that fits his style so much better.
While the performances are nothing short of brilliant in The Favourite, I believe a lot of credit belongs to writers Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara. The characters are given rich dialogue with plenty of keen barbs for them to throw back and forth as they verbally spare mercilessly with each other. Honestly, the dialogue is what makes The Favourite just so damn good, because honestly, the characters are all so awful (and I mean that as a compliment) that the only way for them to be tolerable is to at least make them funny. They also break the film up into chapters which manage to emphasize the many mini-arcs within it. The film is certainly quite good in general but breaking it up by inserting short breathers between major scenes allows the events time to sink in and settle with the audience. In a way, the chapter cards seen throughout The Favourite act as perfectly placed exclamation points.
While Stone and Weisz turn in some of the best performances in the film, Nicholas Hoult’s character seems to have the most fun in the film. The writers great a truly enjoyable bastard in his character Harley, a politician not above making thinly veiled threats or letting those around him know how little he thinks of them. While the women of the film must “act like ladies” (well, at least most of the time), Hartley seems free to be as crass as he desires in a number of scenes. Of course, men often get away with that kind of stuff, but Hoult has so much fun with the role that it’s hard not to love him even during his more despicable moments. After all, he is just as bad as they are, he just doesn’t try to hide it from anyone.
The Favourite is easily one of the finer films of 2018. It’s filled with crass humor and brutal insults that are emphasized by the electric chemistry between all the actors and is a film that will definitely rack up the accolades this award season. Because of that fact alone, I say that The Favourite is a movie well worth watching and is a refreshing break from big blockbuster superhero movies, yet proves to be quite a bit of fun to watch as well.
