Directed by: Yorgos Lanthimos
Runtime: 121 minutes
Watching The Favourite is like receiving a beautifully wrapped gift, with beautiful wrapping and silken ribbon, only to open it and be confronted by the horrific spectacle of a dead, rotting rat. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing—the shock, disgust, and wincing that I was privy to throughout the film made it stick with me after viewing. Before the film, I was expecting a quirky dark-comedy set around the Regency era, but it became very clear the comedy that Greek-auteur-director Yorgos Lanthimos was playing with wasn’t merely dark, but pitch-black. It is a deeply disgusting film—there is gout mixed in with explicit descriptions of cunnilingus, multiple instances of full-frontal vomiting, and a long, slo-mo scene of a bloated man in the nude, penis tucked in, being pelted with fruit.
Set among the reign of Britain’s Queen Anne (Olivia Coleman), we follow the political power-struggles of Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) and her cousin Abigail (Emma Stone) as both battle for the favour of a fickle Queen, who values companionship over the silly ‘politics’ she is forced to partake in. In Anne’s court, the men may squabble about politics while racing ducks and eating feasts, and the women merely use them as pawns in long-games of power politics. While it would be easy to reduce the three lead characters to overly-goofy stereotypes, we are given somewhat complex portrayals of the women at the centre of the film. As an audience member, your allegiances are continually prone to change—each character is deeply flawed, and sometimes unlikable, but fuelled with enough charisma to keep you engaged.
The stand-out element of this film lies in the performances. Weisz and Stone have proven extremely watchable, and despite being an American, Stone’s British accent is decent enough to never lean into grating territory. Nicholas Hoult is surprisingly fantastic as Robert Harley, the petty opposition to Churchill’s war efforts. However, Olivia Coleman knocks it out of the park as the Queen. It is difficult to portray a deeply flawed character with such likeability, and Coleman puts her all into fleshing out the royal.
I cannot say this is, by any means, an enjoyable film to watch. Fish-eye lenses and bleak colouration make every scene feel claustrophobic and cold. The mise-en-scene is sickly; the costuming and set-dressing is more French than British at points and is so garish among the cool lighting that I felt myself getting queasy. However, I was engaged throughout the entire run-time, and the film is so interestingly crafted that it is hard for it not to stick in your mind after the credits roll. This may be a film I watch once, and only once—but all in all, I am glad that I had that first viewing.
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