Favourite, The (2018) [Blu-ray]
Biography | Comedy | Drama | History

It's the early 1700s, and England is at war with France. One young woman, Abigail, decides to take advantage of the tumultuous times and forge a friendship with Lady Sarah. A woman who has been tasked with basically running the country while dealing with her mercurial queen's demands, Sarah is a force to reckon with. She quickly sees some of herself in Abigail, and it's not long before Abigail is faced with her biggest challenge yet-befriending Queen Anne, getting back into her graces and restoring her status as an aristocrat.

Storyline: Early 18th century. England is at war with the French. Nevertheless, duck racing and pineapple eating are thriving. A frail Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) occupies the throne and her close friend Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) governs the country in her stead while tending to Anne's ill health and mercurial temper. When a new servant Abigail (Emma Stone) arrives, her charm endears her to Sarah. Sarah takes Abigail under her wing and Abigail sees a chance at a return to her aristocratic roots. As the politics of war become quite time consuming for Sarah, Abigail steps into the breach to fill in as the Queen's companion. Their burgeoning friendship gives her a chance to fulfill her ambitions and she will not let woman, man, politics or rabbit stand in her way. Written by Fox Searchlight Pictures

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, March 2, 2019 Well, as it turned out, Olivia Colman was indeed "The Favourite" at the recent Academy Awards, besting the recently "rechristened via meme" Glenn "Close, but no cigar"*, who had been touted by the pundit class as a near shoe in, in the Best Actress category. That was one of the few big surprises on Oscar night, but it perhaps helped to shine a light on one of the more peculiar films from 2018, one that combines the typically opulent trappings of a so-called "historical epic" with a much more modern day ambience, leading to a rather interesting intentional clash between style and content. Anyone who has seen either or both of director Yorgos Lanthimos' two immediately prior films, The Lobster and/or The Killing of a Sacred Deer, may have a (pantalooned?) leg up on the proceedings here, for Lanthimos once again flirts with near surrealism even as he doles out some more anchored psychological truths. The story of the film is very loosely based on actual history, though Lanthimos and his team are up front in the "making of" featurette included on this Blu-ray disc as a supplement that they really weren't going for anything approaching true "historical accuracy". That means that not only actual "facts" here are questionable on several occasions, but the whole tone of the film is often deliberately off kilter and almost dreamlike at times.

Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) sits uneasily on the throne of England, both due to psychological infirmities brought about by a devastating series of miscarriages (one of the film's "actual" facts), but also due to a series of health issues, including recurrent gout. At her side is the Duchess of Marlborough, Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz, BAFTA and Golden Globe winner and Academy Award nominee for this performance), who for all intents and purposes is, as they say, the power behind the throne. Anne and Sarah enjoy more than a mere "professional" relationship, but their intimacy is thrown into disarray when Abigail Hill (Emma Stone, also Academy Award, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated for this performance), Sarah's cousin who has had a series of both financial and social setbacks, shows up at the palace looking for work.

The rest of the film plays out as a kind of bizarro world ménage à trois, a perhaps apt term given the fact that part of the underlying plot mechanics is that England is ensconced in a costly war with France. Against the roiling political atmosphere of Anne trying to deal with how to fund the fracas, Sarah and Abigail become rivals of sorts for Anne's attention, leading to some interactions that are simultaneously kind of darkly humorous but also rather troubling at times. Sarah is shown to be smart, capable and ruthless in her own way, though she's obviously deeply devoted to Anne. Abigail, on the other hand, comes across as a wide eyed naif at times, which turns out to be a complete fabrication, as she is, if anything, more ruthless than Sarah.

Now the world of court intrigue is certainly nothing new for films, but what sets The Favourite apart is not just a certain modernity of language (also discussed in the making of featurette), but a freewheeling filming style that actually makes some of Lanthimos' flourishes in The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer seem downright staid. Lanthimos and cinematographer Robbie Ryan resort to a glut of totally weird, askew, framings, including lots of uses of fisheye lenses and a penchant for almost giddy tracking shots that careen through the largely abandoned halls of Anne's palace. It's a totally off the wall presentational style that gives The Favourite a very unique appearance, one that frankly may chafe against the sensibilities of those who want their historical films offered "straight, no chaser", as it were.

In terms of that particular preference, sticklers would be well advised to approach this film as a fanciful "riff" on history rather than an attempt at an accurate recreation. While there's evidently some evidence that Anne and Sarah may have been intimate with each other, there's also evidently no outright proof. Some of the more hyperbolic elements of the story, like a little "addition" Abigail pours into Sarah's tea at one point, leading to some horrifying calamity, apparently never happened. But even with the accretions and fictionalizations that screenwriters Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara have brought to the tale, there's an underlying feeling of verisimilitude in terms of the emotions being experienced by the focal trio of women. And how refreshing, even bracing, is it to have a major film which in fact offers three outstanding "lead" female performances (even if two of them were relegated to "Supporting" status in the awards season)?

*Amidst the glut of "Close, but no cigar" memes that littered my social media feeds in the wake of Colman's rather surprising upset, I offered my own probably less than helpful suggestion about how Close could finally win her long delayed Academy Award. I suggested she tackle the role of Susan Lucci in a biopic called "Just Give Me a (your favorite expletive goes here) Emmy Already." I stand ready to help develop this property should anyone be interested.

The Favourite's stylistic excesses may actually help the film elide a few dangling plot points. (I for one had a number of questions, including how Abigail came by her knowledge of healing herbs, why Anne was so negatively affected by music in the courtyard, or even why it's hinted Sarah is being kept against her will in a house of ill repute at one point in the story.) This is another really audacious effort from Lanthimos, and it's notable in a way that the film is structured so securely around the three main females that my review didn't even mention any of the (supporting) male characters. Fox offers a beautiful looking and sounding disc, and The Favourite comes Highly recommended.

[CSW] -4.2- Entertaining, yes. Sets and costumes are great. All three actresses really do a good job with their characters. The story is unique. Gone is the irreverent, singular, and absurdist instead we get a mature, refined, well-acted and directed, top of the line movie. Some will say that this movie is a train wreck with crude humor, sadism, and perversion, but they haven't read The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli. This is the usual royalty scheming to get in with the monarch story. These happened all the time, and need to be told, but are not all that uplifting. For once the, some would say clever, scheming is told with what is probably more accuracy than most people would have imagined. This bit of unpleasant truthfulness is extremely well told. Don't miss it and try to watch it on the biggest screen that you can.
[V5.0-A5.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box


º º