The Favourite. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Starring Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone. Rating: 9 (out of 10)
Stuffy is a word often associated with period pieces but likely never to be linked to innovative director Yorgos Lanthimos, auteur of Dogtooth, The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Thus his tale of 18th century monarch Queen Anne is a femme-centred tweaking of history, complete with some decidedly anachronistic dance moves and plenty of fresh air.
The men are more or less neutered in this adaptation, preening fops in sky-high wigs who spend their time racing prized ducks around the drawing room while the women are out shooting and getting down to the business of the palace. (Queen Anne did have a husband at this point in history, but he is nowhere to be found, redundant to Lanthimos’ story.)
Olivia Colman is pure perfection as Queen Anne, distracted from palace business by the ever-present pain of her gout and hollowed-out emotionally by the terrific loss of her 17 children. She has more or less abdicated the running of things to her companion, Lady Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz), who has become the queen’s bedroom companion in order to keep her husband in command of the royal army.
Things are turned upside down by the arrival of Lady Churchill’s cousin Abigail Hill (Emma Stone), a lady of noble breeding pushed to rock bottom after her father gambled her away in a card game. Abigail needs a job, and Sarah somewhat ungenerously puts her with the scullery maids. But ever-ambitious Abigail curries royal favour after she picks some herbs in the woods to ease the blistering sores on the queen’s legs. Soon there’s a love triangle/hostile takeover afoot: dangerous, considering Sarah’s proficiency with guns.
There are men in the palace, of course. Nicolas Hoult is great fun as Lord Harley, the leader of the opposition, who is frustrated by Sarah’s manipulation of the queen and the fact that she’s bleeding the country’s landowners dry to finance her husband’s war with France. He tries to recruit Abigail to spy for him using the lovely Lord Masham (Joe Alwyn) as bait; she turns his plan on end when she marries Masham to restore her title instead.
The film vacillates easily between luxe and muck (literally: one chapter is entitled “This Mud Stinks”) as the fortunes of these three women rise and fall. Production design highlights the sumptuous excesses of the palace, and the costume design by Sandy Powell – who has dressed courts before in Shakespeare In Love, The Young Victoria, The Other Boleyn Girl and a zillion others – reflects both the norms of the day and quirky updates (polka dots!) befitting Lanthimos’ vision.
But what a treat it is to see these women run roughshod over parliament and the palace! You need to be cunning to survive the fickleness of court life, and both Sarah and Abigail have it in spades. These three women play off of each other superbly, bringing a pathos lying in wait behind all that caustic wit. None more than Colman, who can move wordlessly from childish delight to boredom to anguish in a single close-up. Expect to see her name everywhere at awards time.
