Screenplay Written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
**** (four stars)
RATED R
This is emphatically NOT your parents' historical costume drama.
Director Yorgos Lanthimos first arrived upon my cinematic radar most brazenly with his surrealistic nightmare entitled "The Lobster" (2015), easily one of the very best films that I have seen in the past 10 years. It was a visionary achievement quite unlike any I had seen and confirmed that he would remain a filmmaker to watch closely in whatever he devised as a follow-up.
"The Killing Of A Sacred Deer" (2017), while a hair muted inits impact when compared with the gut punch of "The Lobster," again provided me with that idiosyncratic dark mirror cinematic vision, where a world that looks like our own inexplicably functions within some bizarre nightmare logic that always feels as if the sky is precariously close to detaching itself from the heavens only to fall and crush us all.
With his latest feature, "The Favourite," Lanthimos dials down the surrealism somewhat without diluting the film's raw, unapologetic power. In fact, it feels to be a much angrier film than its two predecessors, yet simultaneously playful in its fury, as we are thrown into a battle of wills between three female forces of nature, all brilliantly portrayed by three powerhouse actresses, each performing at the top of their respective games. Garish, ravenous and utterly ruthless, Yorgos Lanthimos' "The Favourite" not only completely upends the classic costume historical drama, it fully obliterates it, ultimately creating a work that maniacally feels more honest than any stuffy, repressed feature we have witnessed before.
Set in 1708, as Britain is at war with France, "The Favourite" stars Olivia Coleman as Queen Anne, an imposing royal figure rapidly succumbing to madness due to a chronic illness with gout as well as unimaginable grief due to 17 children she has lost over the years and whom are now all represented by 17 pet rabbits named for each of her deceased offspring.
With a waning interest in governing and wildly increased eccentricities, including racing ducks in the palace, Queen Anne's fractured reign is truly being overseen by Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz)--the Queen's primary confidant, adviser and clandestine lover. Yet, Sarah's success at complete control over the Queen are consistently thwarted by Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer (Nicholas Hoult), a member of Parliament as well as a landowner.
Emma Stone enters the film as Abigail Hill, who happens to be Sarah Churchill's destitute cousin, and is in search of employment. While first hired as a maid and subjected to all manner of menial tasks, Abigail soon learns of the Queen's affair with Sarah and devises of ways to ingratiate herself into the Queen's favor, ultimately threatening to usurp Sarah's prized status.
What results is an escalating war in the personal balance of power between all three women within a story during which victory is forever fleeting, the spoils are bracingly elusive and the relentless pursuit of both grows tirelessly rancorous.
Exceedingly profane, rapacious, wrathful, crude, vulgar, gluttonous, lusty, downright nasty and filled with all manner of verbal profanities from end to end, Yorgos Lanthimos' "The Favourite" is an unrepentantly bleak comedy that not only bares its fangs viciously, it plunges its venomous bite continuously.
I have to admit that I have often had difficulty attempting to find my way into the cinematic worlds of costume period dramas. Of course, there have been some that I have loved, Milos Forman's "Amadeus" (1984) existing as one of the finest I have ever been graced to witness. But generally, the ornate quality of those sorts of films, while visually dazzling, like Martin Scorsese's "The Age Of Innocence" (1993) for instance, I am often held at an emotional arms length, making me feel somewhat as repressed as the characters themselves.
By astonishing contrast, Yorgos Lanthimos blasts apart any conventional sense or trappings of this particular cinematic sub genre, making "The Favourite" the first film of this sort that I have seen since Sofia Coppola's gorgeously unorthodox "Marie Antoinette" (2006) to play with the form... and ferociously so. In fact, Lanthimos's approach feels more akin to some enfant terrible wreaking havoc upon the most pristine snow globe by shaking it so violently that it threatens to fall apart, spilling its contents upon the floor underneath.
Yorgos Lanthimos' "The Favourite" gleefully thrusts the faces of his characters, as well as those of us in the audience, into the visual and emotional filth of things, making the proceedings refreshingly visceral, giving us what a film like Paul Thomas Anderson's visually resplendent yet emotionally cerebral "Phantom Thread" (2017) only hinted at.
Working in astounding collaboration with Cinematographer Robbie Ryan, Lanthimos creates a pristine yet hallucinogenic landscape filled with all manner of fish eye lenses and upward camera angles designed to make the characters loom monstrously. And with that, Lanthimos then thematically and literally pulls the bottom out from his central trio of characters tirelessly, as all three are repeatedly thrown to the palace floors, dropped in mud, and splashed and splattered with water, sweat, spit, vomit and pigeon blood, fully desecrating any conceived sense of royalty. Lanthimos captures the rightful grime and filth as seen in Terry Jones' "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975) and peppers it in an experience that could be seen as a combination of Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "All About Eve" (1950) by way of Stanley Kubrick, Ken Russell and Terry Gilliam.
Yes, "The Favourite" is that kind of a film.
Even so, it is easily Lantimos' most accessible film since "The Lobster," and for that matter, it is even more accessible as some of his aesthetics (the bone dry line readings, the Kurbrick-ian clinical cinematography) are toned down and therefore replaced with a more energetic, naturalized style. And still, this film feels to be very much of a piece with "The Killing Of A Sacred Deer," as we are witness to the searing battle between the failures of the flesh and the iron will of the mind, and even moreso with "The Lobster," as that film is continuing to reveal itself as existing as a work so insidious that it has now made its indelible stamp upon each of his subsequent features.
Within "The Lobster," we were given an unrepentantly frightening experience housed as a social satire regarding the nature of dating, relationships and societal pressures against being single, where in the dystopian land of this film, people who are unable to find a mate within a 30 day period will be therefore transformed into animals. This conceit led to a feature where Lanthimos was able to explore the juxtaposition of humans and animals, allowing us to almost magically view the human inside of the animal and vice versa.
This theme continues strongly within "The Favourite" as a metaphor when thinking about Queen Anne's 17 rabbits, all named after her deceased children, and more emphatically within the film's final moments, a shattering climax (of which I, of course, would never spoil for you) albeit one that has already confounded audiences. Yet, for me, it felt to be the most perfect conclusion, as the themes of power, control, servitude and that aforementioned human/animal juxtaposition becomes even clearer, especially when dealing with the sub-human behaviors of the so-called higher species. Astoundingly merciless in its depiction as well as its warning, as I think "The Favourite" can also be viewed as a social/political allegory to our current inhumane political culture.
Awards season is going to have a rapturously difficult time attempting to determine which leading female performances should receive celebratory notices as "The Favourite" contains three which could easily be up for recognition simultaneously. Both Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone have clearly relished the opportunities to break free from their respective comfort zones (especially Stone, whom I adore but have been feeling that she has been creatively holding back for quite some time) and unlock a previously unseen level of cunning and rage while also exhibiting rich behavioral layers which allows us to not only understand them and their actions, but to miraculously obtain sympathy.
Olivia Coleman is simply spectacular as Queen Anne, as she delivered a bravura performance utterly devoid of any stitch of vanity, as she fearlessly allows us to witness the height of royalty appear so loathsome, so infantile, so unattractive and all the while, again, we understand, and quite possibly sympathize with her the most.
In the character of Queen Anne, Coleman delivers a truly harrowing portrayal of physical and undeniably debilitating mental illness, which illustrates her unraveling regarding her governing duties as well as the relationships she has cultivated with both Sarah and Abigail yet inexplicably remains razor sharp when it comes to maintaining power. This is a tightrope walk of a performance, where Coleman has to present essentially all sides of the Queen's fractured psyche plus her physical ailments constantly, and without fail as one false move would compromise the full impact. Just a remarkable and devastating work.
While there are quite a number of films that I either have not seen or have yet to see, I am amazed at the level of greatness already screened in this cinematic year of 2018. Yorgos Lanthimos' "The Favourite," so feral and filled with fury, is easily yet another one of this year's highest achievements.
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