Review: "The Favourite" is One of the Wickedest, Most Enjoyable Period Pieces in Ages

Scene from The Favourite

The idea of power is alluring. For a certain breed of people, the idea of getting close to it is a dream come true, and they'll stop at nothing to get it. That is at the heart of director Yorgos Lanthimos' first period piece The Favourite, as two women (Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz) enter a grueling battle to be the faithful companion of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman). Whereas most power struggles feel restrained and calculated, this feels like a truly antagonistic film, unafraid to paint Queen Anne at times as ugly and repugnant. Still, in her moments of weakness she turns to Abigail (Stone) and Lady Sarah (Weisz) help. It's a hostile world with lots of grossness and people assaulting each other, and all so that they can get Queen Anne's affection. Thankfully Lanthimos is a filmmaker who uses this icky surface to explore power not as something to be desired, but why would anyone want it in the first place. Thankfully, it's got a reliably pitch black sense of humor to make the awfulness go down smoothly.

At the center of the story is Queen Anne. In textbooks and in general, royalty has always been depicted as something majestic, incapable of the flaws that stagnate the common man. It's what makes the early go of the film especially jarring. In a shameless role, Colman embodies the queen as a woman a tad clueless of the walls outside her castle, unaware that war is still going on and will prolong the building of a castle for Lady Sarah, her favorite servant who is at times highly abusive back. The introduction is short, as the film quickly throws Queen Anne into a state of illness that creates something unpleasant. She vomits, has fits of derangement, and is wheeled around in a wheelchair where she yells in an agitating manner. As the figure everyone turns to for acceptance, she is a confusing sort. There's little glamour beyond the wardrobe and the hallways often shot through a fish-eye lens. In fact, it creates a disconnect right away that carries throughout the film. As the power is decaying, who will take up her mantle? Sarah and Abigail are the opponents, and there's a sense that they're only still in the battle because Queen Anne is more of a symbol than a person to them.

Lady Sarah, in traditional sense, is the antagonist of the film despite the central three women all having one or two skin crawling quirks. For one, she is the one closest to power and arguably has the most control in the entire kingdom. She leads the war, she tells the Queen what to do. She isn't even afraid about pointing a loaded gun at Abigail for fun. She is a delightful psychopath with an impeccable fashion design (thanks once again to Sandy Powell) and the most proper elocution of anyone in the film. To stare into her face is to see the daunting figure whose strategy had been in play years before the movie's lens fell on her. All she has to do is wait things out. Despite wearing predominantly dresses, she has one of the film's rare masculine appearances in the film. With broad shoulders and masculine textures, she would look tough even if her smile wasn't hiding something underneath. As great as Colman is in the role, it's Weisz who sells the film's ongoing conflict, especially as her character heads down a path of revenge that gets uglier and nastier by the film's end.

Abigail is introduced covered in mud, tossed from a carriage as if a piece of trash. There's a lot to wonder about, especially as she fell from royalty years ago. She is defiant but arguably more meticulous than Sarah. She has a confidant that she shares her plans with and it's clearer that she's in the circle of Queen Anne almost exclusively for power. Stone has the ability to sell her disregard for humanity simply because of her warmness as a performer. She has a boyfriend, whose flirtation is done through kneeing him in the stomach as she laughs. The audience sees her rise, and it makes sense why she is pictured as the protagonist. She has nothing to lose at first. She would be the hero if she didn't develop an unpleasant defensiveness as she became closer to Queen Anne. Her schoolyard bully tactics become more apparent, especially as Sarah becomes more jealous and excised. Much like they see Queen Anne as a symbol, there's reason to believe that Queen Anne sees them as symbols too. The favorite isn't someone who is pampered, but more equivalent to the head servant.

Lanthimos has gotten a reputation as a very calculated director, capable of falling into dark stories with an engrossing slowness that meditates on everything. There's humanity in The Favourite, but it's characters that nobody cares about. What is here is a story about awful people all fighting for the position of power that they feel is their. It's petty for sure, but there's enough distance to allow the audience to both despise the characters and feel inclined to see how things play out. After all, how often is royalty actually depicted this sickly, as people who are barely holding themselves together and growing worse due to oncoming fears of losing power? It's a film that has fun with this dynamic and portrays every detail with lush beauty that offsets the ugliness that pops up occasionally. With a film shot with natural light, this is another period piece that will appeal to audiences of less polished, more raw narratives where people aren't as perfect as history would like to remember them. Even the favorite of The Favourite is an awful person, and it only raises the question of why anyone would want to be that.

The film is another accomplishment from the Greek director, marking his third English-language film. With excellent performances, the world of The Favourite is one of those great movies that challenges the audience to like it, but inevitably rewards those who are willing to look past the self-indulgence and beautiful costumes and cinematography to find what's really at play. Anyone who wants power is crazy, and Lanthimos' ability to focus on this through a female prism allows for an exciting and different perspective. It wasn't only men dethroning each other, it was the servants of the queen viciously attacking each other for such a menial chance of glory. With great performances from the central cast, this is a great example of how period pieces can provide metaphors for the modern era, suggesting how cruel humanity can be when it's desiring something so aspired. For all of its ugliness, The Favourite exceeds at just being a fun movie full of compelling aspects that never lets up before leaving the audience with a lot to think about. Power may be great, but it comes at such a soul-crushing cost.