Director Yorgos Lanthimos
Left to right, Actress Olivia Colman and Emma Stone
THE FAVOURITE B
Ireland Great Britain USA (119 mi) 2018 d: Yorgos Lanthimos Official site
As it turns out, I am capable of much unpleasantness.
Ireland Great Britain USA (119 mi) 2018 d: Yorgos Lanthimos Official site
As it turns out, I am capable of much unpleasantness.
―Abigail (Emma Stone)
This is what you call a good old-fashioned costume drama, the kind kids love to play when they’re young, able to ham it up in colorfully dressed-up attire, freely exaggerating characters to extremes, as after all, they’re seeking attention in their young underdeveloped lives. Add mature subject matter to a room full of adults and you’ve got yourself a lavish theatrical spectacle, with sexual intrigue galore and a government that loves to play dress-up with wigs and powdered faces, all pretending to be something they’re not, like being noble, where the game is getting underneath the surface to discover the real lives underneath all the comic buffoonery. Rivaling the deceptive wit of a Monty Python sketch, written by Deborah Davis with help from Tony McNamara, this deliciously entertaining 18th century historic sex farce reeks of flowery language and sarcastic double entendres usually meant to disarm or humiliate the person spoken to, where language is a means for personal assault, with characters trading surgically precise barbs and insults with great regularity, while the reigning powerbrokers protect their vested interests with aplomb, literally dismissing anyone or anything that disagrees with them. While Queen Ann (the meekish Olivia Colman) who ruled England from 1702 until 1714 sits on the throne, her physical and mental capacities are diminished by gout (so extreme she had to be carried to her Coronation), burdened with a cane and wheelchair, having lost 17 children in her lifetime (replacing them with pet rabbits in her bedroom chamber), five were stillborn, eight were miscarriages, while the others survived for brief durations, expressing little interest in running a government, viewed as ridiculously frail and not of sound mind, spending nearly all of her time locked away in her room, stuffing herself on cakes and what nots, an infantile caricature of what power represents (remind you of anyone?), with regularly occurring temper tantrums, having more in common with the randomly capricious moods of Lewis Carroll’s Queen of Hearts, utterly mad, disagreeable and quarreling all the while, screaming out orders as the mood suits her like “Off with her head!” as all she can really think about is herself. While it’s a disparagingly weak portrait of a nation in crisis, suffering the delusional rantings of a simpleton on the throne who is in constant need of companionship, all that is righted by the corrective substitute of Lady Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz, supremely dominant with a carefree spirit, exuding utter abandon and joy), the Queen’s advisor on all things from fashion to waging war, who effectively runs the government in abstentia, gallivanting around the court like one of The Three Musketeers, shooting pigeons with rifles, riding horseback through the forests, and manipulating the will of the Queen with utter nonchalance, treating her like a child, scolding and rebuking her at will (as she does the other men on the court), acting as her sole protector, the only person in her trust, as she’s also her secret lover. While the men amuse themselves with the delusions of power (the film ignores whoever the Queen is consorting with to get pregnant), playing war games with France and arguing over taxes, their role is completely diminished by the effusive power of the women, content instead to serve in a subservient role.
While secretly burroughing herself into the hidden realms of
the palace, Abigail is able to spy on the sexual dalliances of Lady Sarah and
the Queen, which is little more than kissing on the lips, with suggestions of
so much more, as we learn that the Queen’s appetite knows no bounds. With this in mind, Abigail starts the sexual
machinations, rubbing the Queen’s legs on command, which begins the exploration
of more fertile territory, with the camera honed in only on the Queen’s facial
expressions, as she obviously agrees with this discretionary exploration of the
forbidden fruit. Once Lady Sarah gets
wind of this, her inclination is to have Abigail sent away, punishing her
openly defiant transgressions, but the Queen will have none of it, as she likes
this latest turn of events, spending her nights sleeping with the young maiden,
hoodwinked into believing a selfless Abigail wants nothing from her. Knowing she’s a liar and a cheat, Lady Sarah
is about to mount a frontal attack exposing the young upstart, but Abigail
spikes her tea, causing her to pass out while riding a horse through the woods,
disappearing for days on end. In this
interim, Abigail not only worms her way into the Queen’s heart, but cleverly
manipulates her into granting a wedding with a young nobleman, which reinstates
her royal standing. The honeymoon is a
thing of beauty, about as short-lived as a short fuse, all the while mulling
over the supposed revenge tactics of the missing Lady Sarah, who ends up in a
flophouse, her face mangled and badly bruised, with a wide gash causing
permanent scarring on her cheek, slowly recovering until the Queen finally
dispatches a search party to find her. When Abigail suggests they are even and can now
drop any foul intentions, a quick slap to the face suggests Lady Sarah doesn’t
share her views on an existing detente.
Upon her return, however, dressed all in black with a veil over the
right side of her face (“If I were a man, I’d be quite dashing with a scar like
this”), she resembles the look of a pirate, but not only that, Lady Sarah has
lost her leverage with the Queen.
Taunting Sarah with her newly reinstated royal status, Abigail leads a
charmed life, as her fairy tale dreams apparently did come true. Unable to convince the Queen of Abigail’s
foul motives, Lady Sarah threatens to expose the Queen with the utter
embarrassment of her prurient love letters sent to Lady Sarah, which would
raise a royal scandal and threaten her rule, but this only leaves a bad taste
with the Queen, not only refusing to send Abigail away, but banishes Lady Sarah
instead, whose utter fall from grace (by nefarious means) is a knockout
blow. What truly elevates this film is
the relation it bears to Kubrick’s masterwork BARRY LYNDON (1975), but from a
female perspective, where there is no infamous duel scene, but if you stay over
the end credits you can hear the fluttering of the doves. Kubrick’s film astounds with an infamous Schubert
Piano Trio, Schubert /
Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat major, D. 929: 2nd mvt - YouTube (3:07) playing
a major musical theme, while this film utilizes another sublimely elegant work
by Schubert, his Piano Sonata #21, D. 960, played by Artur Schnabel, Artur
Schnabel plays Schubert Sonata in B flat Major D 960 (2/3) YouTube (11:22),
which plays over Lady Sarah’s masterfully conniving fall from favor. While all three women are adorable and
irresistible, the film is comically subversive, way over the top, with plenty
of glitz and glamor, yet it doesn’t hold a candle to the epic tragedy that
befell Barry Lyndon in Kubrick’s film.
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