The Favourite

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. 

―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.   

The film had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, winning the Grand Prize (2nd place) to Cuarón’s ROMA (2018), while Colman came away with the Best Actress award.  Shot on location at the Hatfield House in Hertfordshire and the Knole House in Sevenoaks, Kent (The Many Lives of an English Manor House - Archaeology Magazine), the darkened chambers are massive, with humans dwarfed by the immensity of the empty spaces, illuminated by candlelight, shot in a stretched and warped super wide-angled lens by Robbie Ryan, distorting reality as much as possible, with messengers continually moving in and out of the corridors, like a Shakespeare play.  Using amusing chapter headings that describe a distinct moment in the next sequence, upbeat classical music adds a degree of romp and hilarity to the proceedings, as the mood in the Queen’s chamber is constantly dour, yet the happy strains of Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, or Purcell add a certain luster to the overall mood and charm of life in a castle.  The only film in his repertoire that doesn’t include the suffocatingly restrictive writing style of the director, this has a much more open and freewheeling style, where gossip and back-stabbing are the main activities inside the castle, while an updated dance sequence is stunningly unconventional, featuring flamboyant Madonna-like vogue hand movements and the remarkable dexterity of early break dancing, yet set in such a traditional costume ball setting that is drop dead hilarious.  While it’s clear Lady Sarah wears the pants of this government, toying with men as mere sport, all in good fun, with her acid tongue and acerbic wit having a good time at their expense, running things smoothly without interference, she literally commands men at will (as well as the Queen) to carry out her wishes.  She is, as the title suggests, the court’s favorite, where a running joke will have Lady Sarah unable to attend to the Queen, being told she’s too busy running matters of the state, with the Queen interrupting the messenger, exclaiming “That’s me!  I’m the state.”  While the film has a kind of goofy feel about it, the mood quickly changes with the introduction of a third female character, Abigail (Emma Stone, who relies upon charm and trickery), Lady Sarah’s distant cousin, whose royal lineage took a tumble when her father gambled her away in a card game, fallen out of favor, leaving her impoverished in a life of “whoredom,” doomed to pleasing men she didn’t know, now searching for a way out of this misery, doing menial work as a scullery maid in the palace, she assumes the role of Cinderella, detested by her sadistic rival servants, treated as the lowest of the low, wishing for that magical turn of events at the masked ball.  Hoping to ingratiate herself into the good graces of the Queen, she searches the forest for herbal remedies that might soothe her inflamed legs, violating protocol by applying the remedy herself, without permission, for which she is brutally punished, yet the Queen finds the treatment effective, as it eases her suffering, so Lady Sarah makes Abigail her lady-in-waiting, soon discovering the benefits of such a position, as the men in government wish to pry secrets about Lady Sarah’s various positions on matters of the court, going to great lengths (in other words demeaning humiliation) to get her to comply.  Abigail is surprisingly literate, able to match wits with anyone, and sexually precocious, not to mention ambitious, willing to do anything to get her title and royal standing back.  In other words, she’s a mirror reflection of Lady Sarah, as both have their own designs on favor. 

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.  

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Director Yorgos Lanthimos

THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER                   D                    

Ireland  Great Britain  (121 mi)  2017  d:  Yorgos Lanthimos

Arguably the worst film seen all year, arriving in theaters with a dull thud, lifeless and humorless throughout, with a cruel streak that couldn’t get any uglier, where one is willing to sit through this drudgery with the hope that there will be a last minute twist that somehow puts this in a different light, but that moment never comes.  Incredibly the writers, Efthymis Filippou and the director Yorgos Lanthimos, shared the best screenplay award at Cannes with Lynne Ramsay’s YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE, which seems like a ludicrous choice after seeing the film, especially since so many screenwriter accolades were already handed out to his previous film, 2016 Top Ten List #9 The Lobster, which thoroughly deserved the awards for humor and originality.  This film has none of that, but simply feels like two hours of detestable unpleasantry that goes absolutely nowhere.  Don’t believe the overhyped superlatives, as this film should have been called out for what it is at the outset, which is a complete waste of time, yet instead it is awarded with one of the coveted prizes at the most prestigious film festival in the world.  Figure that one out.  Lately Cannes has had a history of making controversial poor choices, but this one tops the list.  "Movie filmed in Cincinnati booed at Cannes".  While this practice is not new, awarding accolades for such incredibly downbeat material is.  This is not an inspiring film and deserves to be walked out on in droves, which sometimes is the only way to send a message.  As described by Michael Sragow of Film Comment, Deep Focus: The Killing of a Sacred Deer - Film Comment:

Lanthimos’s mode of riffing in a stiff, oracular manner can seem compelling and oddly funny, at least for a half-hour or so, even to skeptics like myself. Then we find ourselves following the four stages of aesthetic grief: denial (“No one, deep down, can take this seriously”); anger (“How dare he stoop to killing off the dog just to provoke us!”); bargaining (“If we regard this film as ‘pure cinema,’ it must get better”); and, finally, depression (“No, it doesn’t get any better”). Happily, for aesthetic grief, as opposed to grief, a fifth stage, “acceptance,” isn’t a necessity. We can always walk out of the theater.

For all practical purposes, that is the best recommendation, as this feels like a zombie movie without the zombies.  Someone forgot to make this interesting.  As is, this is a joyless piece of anti-theater, with insipidly dull and emotionally inert characters speaking to one another with no emotional inflection whatsoever, so it comes across as intentionally deadpan.  However, whatever humor is to be found at the outset simply by the absurdity of what we are seeing dissipates over time, making the film something of a disaster in the making, as there is no reward for having to sit through this.  Unlike early Warhol films, especially his films of duration, like SLEEP (1964) or EMPIRE (1965), which surprisingly offer a social commentary, the question always becomes, at what point do viewers develop the fortitude to walk out, as there is no reward for enduring images where nothing happens.  After a certain period of time, you get the point.  Whatever may be the original intent here is undermined by the film’s own twisted pathology, becoming a warped and darkly disturbing attempt to satirize an emasculated idealization of the suburban dream, sucking the life right out of you, where all that’s left is a pervading sense of powerlessness, and a futility to struggle against it.  While one supposes there is an entertainment factor to see how issues develop and resolve themselves, yet this film offers no rewards afterwards.  It’s not like we ever learn anything or gain any insight.  Instead we’re left with a sick fever dream from which there is no escape.  In the life of a successful middle-class physician (Colin Farrell), a single event alters his life, as he loses a patient on the operating table.  Strangely and mysteriously, the physician meets secretly with what appears to be a mentally unstable boy (Barry Keoghan), a kid with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, the kind of person you’d walk away from the first chance you get.  But the doctor invests time and patience, as we learn his father is the one who dies on the operating table, with this kid exacting revenge, claiming members of the doctor’s family will meet the same fate.   One by one they will fall ill, their bodies failing them, until eventually they shut down and die.  All this is explained very matter of factly.

Like some Twilight Zone episode, viewers may attribute supernatural powers to this thoroughly detestable kid, but nothing is mentioned in the film, so whatever viewers imagine likely comes from their own imaginations, as it’s not in the storyline.  Little by little things get worse and worse, as first one kid and then the next succumbs to undiagnosed ailments that can’t be explained, despite thorough examinations from the best minds of the country.  For a physician, whose arrogance has no bounds, educated in science and logic, and his ice-princess wife (Nicole Kidman), living the supposed perfect suburban life, this is more than they can stand, with the doctor browbeating his own kids in an attempt to usurp whatever power controls them.  Again, all of this is done without an ounce of emotion from the kid, though the doctor loses it from time to time, acting on anger impulse, doing his best Charles Bronson imitation, but his threats fall on deaf ears.  The kid has sinister powers.  The dilemma is, if you just go ahead and get rid of the kid, then your own kids are already on a similar path, with no resolution, leaving you in a tough spot.  Doing nothing means everyone except the doctor himself dies.  However, if the doctor takes the life of one of his own kids, that would suffice.  These are the rules of the game.  In the film, having no other choice, everyone plays along, sucking up to this monster, resorting to all manner of horrid human behavior.  Somehow, someway, viewers wonder if there will be an unexpected twist that swoops in and alters the endlessly bleak landscape.  Don’t hold your breath.  The question is whether anything profound may be drawn from this work, and whether putting the audience through the wringer of a torture chamber is the best way to unravel some essential truths.  On both counts, the film thoroughly disappoints.  Initial thoughts that come to mind is this could be an extension of the kid in Lynn Ramsey’s We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), taking it even further, adding a supernatural element, while another variation is offering a contemporary setting for the Biblical story of Abraham who is instructed by God to kill his only son, Isaac, like sacrificing a lamb. Only when God can see that Abraham intends to obey him, binding his child and raising a knife to his throat, does he rescind his order, satisfied that Abraham has faith, allowing both to live.  In the Lanthimos version, there is no God and there is no justice.  Only a heartlessly futile existence.