It was 1708. Sarah Churchill was the Duchess of Marlborough. She was the closest friend of Queen Anne, who was preferred to spend her days doing her unusual hobbies than be queen. Sarah was actually making the political decisions on behalf of the queen. This caused her to have enemies among the landowners who were being heavily taxed by her policies to fund Britain's war against France.
Abigail Hill was Sarah's cousin whose family had been disgraced by gambling debts by her father. She started work at the palace as a maid, but she was eventually promoted to be the Queen's personal maid in her bedchamber. There, upon discovering Sarah's secret initmate relationship between the Queen, the shrewd Abigail developed a devious plot to usurp and take over Sarah's position as the Queen's favourite.
The main story of this strange period film about the rabid rivalry between Sarah and Abigail to be the Queen's favourite. Do not expect a peaceful genteel Merchant-Ivory film. This was a no-holds-barred and vicious catfight with all claws out, as presented to us for our entertainment by Greek director Yorgos Lanthinos. His previous films "Dogtooth" (2009) and "The Lobster" (2015) attained critical acclaim. Despite its offbeat nature, it was still the one that was most accessible to the mainstream. Likewise, it was this one that finally earned him the Oscar nomination for both Best Picture and Directing.
Despite not being the main character, Olivia Colman was the one who earned a slew of Best Actress nominations for her role as Queen Anne. In the story, this queen was actually frail and often seen in bed, or in the company of her pet rabbits. However, Colman was able to give Anne a memorably bizarre behavior that cannot be ignored. She still maintained an imperious queenly air about her despite being infirm. Her bipolar personality was switching to and fro erratically, but she can still make her royal pronouncements and made sure her orders were carried out.
Previous Oscar winners both, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone fully deserved critical praises for their performances here, which I honestly thought were not supporitng at all. They were both played strong characters. They were so shamelessly committed even if the scene was crude or embarassing. I would have thought that Weisz and Stone should compete for Best Actress, together with Colman to set an Oscar precedent. Between the two, I'd say Weisz has the edge to win, for being in that fantastically beguiling ballroom dance scene and that harrowing horse riding scene.
The blackness of the comedy reflects in the unusually over-the-top costume designs (an Oscar nomination for Sandy Dennis) as well as make-up and hairstyling. Under all the strong female characters, the male characters were all seemingly made to look very foolish. For me, I like these types of historical movies with their interesting character and cultural studies, so I was very much engaged in this one. The sharpness of the biting comedy is certainly something to relish, like quality cheddar cheese. .8/10.
The Favourite is not a Comedy. It is a tragedy about infertility, love, friendship, manipulation and overambition among other things. It is comical at times but in reality, it is a very serious film. It raises a lot of questions, one of them for example is… can people of high power (royals, politicians, CEOs etc) have true (can we ever define that?) friends? At the end all three ladies lost everything that mattered to them…. Funnily enough the only winner was mister Harley (outrageous performance from Nicholas Hoult)…! 9/10 from me
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