Girls get it done. This is Lanthimos’ attempt at a fun dark comedy/satire in a period drama setting. Killing of a Sacred Deer embraced some Kubrickisms with its cinematography, here Lanthimos tips his hat to Barry Lyndon in every creative department. At the center we have three complex characters; one queen and two different kind of parasites. Weisz and Stone might seem like similar characters on the surface, but if you pay attention to the food that’s served when each of them is in charge, you’ll quickly understand the difference between their characters (very nice detail, Yorgos). Still, they’re all simultaneously sympathetic and selfish b*tches in their own way, so that leads to an interesting power dynamic between the three of them. The cast is amazing, smaller roles included. Stone gets Lanthimos’ quirk like no other actress, Colman’s voice and body language make every joke at least 50% more hilarious and Weisz displays an incredible amount of range. Technically the film is immaculate, the cinematography and lighting are incredible and once again raise Yorgos’ already very high bar. I wish he was more consistent with his use of fisheye lenses though. I get why they’re there but their use is almost too sporadic here, so much so that it becomes distracting when they’re used. I also think the film is generally too predictable to be truly amazing. In particular when it comes to the first two acts, you pretty much know what the character arcs are going to be. Lots of funny scenes with great, unexpected moments, but the most interesting things start to happen during the third act. The note that it decides on, though, is unquestionably compelling and comments interestingly on the themes of unconditional love and leadership.
7.5/10
The Favourite, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, is a film that follows the rivalry between two cousins, Lady Sarah and Abigail, for the affections and ear of Queen Anne in the early 1700s. While the film boasts a strong cast and visually pleasing costume design, the story falls short with a lack of tension and an over-reliance on absurdity. The performances by Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone are noteworthy, but their characters are not particularly likable. Overall, The Favourite fails to live up to the expectations set by Lanthimos' previous films, The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer.
The Favourite, dirigida por Yorgos Lanthimos, es una película que sigue la rivalidad entre dos primas, Lady Sarah y Abigail, por el cariño y el oído de la reina Ana a principios del siglo XVIII. Si bien la película cuenta con un elenco fuerte y un diseño de vestuario visualmente agradable, la historia se queda corta con una falta de tensión y una excesiva confianza en el absurdo. Las actuaciones de Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz y Emma Stone son notables, pero sus personajes no son particularmente agradables. En general, The Favourite no cumple con las expectativas establecidas por las películas anteriores de Lanthimos, The Lobster y The Killing of a Sacred Deer.
Very entertaining movie. It is not really a period piece, considering that it takes many liberties depicting Queen Anne's reign(for once, her husband was alive in the years this movie takes place).
But historical accuracy is not the aim of this movie. The central theme is the dichotomy between Sarah and Abigail. Harsh versus flattering, loyal versus mercenary.
The story is well told, even if it takes a while to really get going. The three female leads carry the whole movie brilliantly, with the male characters being relegated to almost comical roles. While the pace is slow, it gives time to get to know more the protagonists. The ending was a bit disappointing. I felt like the movie was setting up for a big climax and it didn't come. I mean, I get the ending (Abigail has done a lot of work to climb the ladder and grab power, but in the end she is still basically a prostitute, just in a prettier setting), but maybe it could have been better.
The cinematography is overall good, if a bit underlit for my taste. The shots in the dark, with just the light from a candle, were really beautiful. I didn't like the use of fisheye lenses, they didn't add anything and felt just weird to me.
The music was a bit meh. Not bad, in some place really well suited for the scene, but in others just annoying and a bit pretentious.
The cast was spectacular. Emma Stone portrays her character evolution amazingly (I went from rooting for her at the start to hoping for her fall from grace), Rachel Weisz plays the conniving Sarah very believably and Olivia Colman is a brilliant Queen Anne, weird but very emphatic. I also really liked Nicholas Hoult, his portray of Lord Harley was very entertaining.
In the end, it is a very enjoyable movie. The almost two hours of runtime are not too heavy to bear, thanks to a great mix of drama and humor that keeps the mood light. It is visually stunning, from the framing of the shots to the costumes. Great performances from the cast all around.
7.5/10
A pair of disingenuous young aspirants vie over Queen Anne's favor amidst the pomp and presumption of 18th century England. Sarah, the stand-offish, incumbent chief of staff, brusquely runs the country while her queen deals with depression, near-madness and a nasty case of the gout. Abigail, a disgraced former upper-class lady who stumbles into the palace smelling of dung and desperation, uses a delicate, sensitive touch to sway the monarch's opinion from the harsher methods of her rival. This pair launches a string of increasingly spiteful schemes and manipulations, always aiming to boost their own standing at the expense of the other, and even the queen herself isn't above such games. A vivid display of willpower, gamesmanship and raw nastiness masked under the guise of civility.
Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone are both excellent as the dueling ladies, but I found the experienced, versatile Olivia Colman's turn as Queen Anne most impressive. Nuanced and complex, her performance transforms a rather frail, tragic figure into something larger, something damaged but still formidable. A Best Actress nomination well-earned.
The camerawork sometimes grows over-ambitious (many early shots use a distracting wide-angle lens that feels out of place) and the ending is a bit of a head-scratcher, but otherwise it's a well-balanced, deliciously mean-spirited battle of wits.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2019-02-12T02:27:18Z
[8.5/10] There are times when the cinematography from The Favourite’s director, Yorgos Lanthimos, and its director of photography, Robbie Ryan, is a bit distracting. At times, Lanthimos and Ryan use a wide angle lens in a way that emphasizes scope within an enclosed space, or holds his subjects at a distance despite how the traditional grammar of film might suggest bringing the audience closer. To some extent this serves the film’s themes of perceived distance between people in intimate situations and false intimacy in what are perceived to be close ones, but at times it also feels more like a tic than an organic piece of the presentation.
But the best way that Lanthimos and Ryan, as well as editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis break the usual rules of cinematography, is in their long reaction shots. More than once, when the usual editing rhythms would dictate cutting between the two people in a conversation, or the event and the observer, The Favourite lingers on the face of the person whose reaction is most important instead. Lanthimos and company let their actors tell the story, of epiphanies grand, small, opportunistic, and tragic, giving the audience time to study their faces and see the emotional consequences of what’s unfolded rather than be told about them.
That’s the great strength of The Favourite, a movie that is as much about the inner lives of the three women at its center as it is about the power-hungry game of royal capture the flag at its center. The film tells the story of Queen Anne, an English monarch beset by loss and reclusive uncertainty; Lady Sarah Marlborough, the Queen’s friend, confidante, and de facto political representative; and Abigail Masham, Lady Marlborough’s cousin who’s brought in as a scullery maid but has designs to climb the ladder out of her humble circumstances.
Ostensibly, the film is centered on who has de facto control over the throne and holds the power of decision with respect to the ongoing war with France. On the one hand is Lady Marlborough, allied with her husband, the head of the country’s armed forces, and the prime minister, who wants to continue the war. And on the other is Abigail, who after currying favor with the Queen over a gout treatment, begins receiving overtures from the opposition leader, Lord Harley, who wants to sue for peace and end the costly war. As both women vie for Queen Anne’s ear, and various blackmail schemes and alliances form in the background, England’s immediate future seems to hang in the balance.
But The Favourite mostly uses that backdrop as stakes and setting for the more personal scheme to scheme combat between Sarah and Abigail, and the personal feelings and failings and distress of the Queen, who’s more interested in companionship and wanting to be loved and attended to than in the business of state. It’s a movie about sexuality, both in how alternative lifestyles are presented in a period setting, but also how physical affection is weaponized and commodified as another treat on offer. It is chiefly a psychological film, which uses its twisty plots and power grabs to explicate the mental state of its stars rather than for the sake of God and Country.
It’s also a damn funny film. Bawdy as all hell, with schemes that play as much for their darkly comic potential as they do for craftiness or malevolence, the film offers a dry wit and a brand of gallows humor that keeps the proceeding livened and laugh-worthy even amid its headier themes. The dialogue in particular is a delight, with creative insults, loopy exchanges, and lovely turns of phrase. The Favourite also captures the lunacy of the noblemen, amid duck races, fruit fights, and forest-side wrestling matches that underscore the absurdity of how the fate of the nation depends on the likes of these idiots.
And yet, at the same time, The Favourite is a profoundly tragic film, about the turning away of tough but genuine love in favor of the flattering but false. It’s centered around a woman who’s massaged and manipulated at least a bit by everyone she encounters, who is clearly unfit to the rule, but who’s in that state after unfathomable losses and physical hardships that help explain why diversion and delight require such a hold over her to keep the distressed and disturbed at bay.
The film toys with its audience a little, trying to earn your sympathies for the comparatively powerless Abigail, who has lost her good name due to her father’s craven shiftlessness, and overcomes her cousin’s efforts to keep her at heel to make her own way. At the same time, it initially paints Lady Marlborough as the bad guy, seemingly mollifying the Queen in a practiced but begrudging fashion, whilst knocking her down when necessary, so as to exercise the real power of the throne behind closed doors.
But the cinch of The Favourite is its telegraphed but still potent flip. For however harsh and practiced in the arts of palatial subterfuge Sarah is, the film reveals her genuine affections for Anne, and her earnest beliefs that her actions, however peculiar or occasionally manipulative they may seem to an outside observer, are for the best, for both the Queen and the England. Abigail, on the other hand, starts from a much less enviable position, but wins the Queen’s favor and gains her council purely on mercenary terms, without a care in the world for the person she’s twisting to get there or the political alliances that help grease the wheels of her rise to power and ouster of her rival.
The Favourite’s biggest moments are the realizations of these things: the moments when newcomers discover how things work at the palace, where dalliances have begun and ended, when the worm has turned and who you’re stuck with after it happens. More than once, Lanthimos and his crew allow Olivia Coleman, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone to carry the emotional weight of the film with those extended moments in the frame, where these epiphanies and resignations and shocks are allowed to wash over them until they wash over the audience too.
With that tool, The Favourite draws its dichotomy: between the practical, persuasive, and occasionally harsh, all done in the name of true belief and even love, and the ingratiating, conniving, and easy answers, offered in the name of predatory and nest-feathering nihilism. The import of that realization, and the shocks and building blocks that lead to it, are left to bloom on the screen, as words from other scenes echo, the special lenses and quirks fall away, and we see our heroes, villains, and victims come to terms with the unfortunate, unfixable messes they’ve made, effected, or allowed.