2010's Catch Up: The Favourite (1/27/2020)

The first film I’m reviewing for my 2010’s catch-up series is Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2018 period drama The Favourite. This is a bit of a weird one, and I found myself having to watch it twice to fully form an opinion on it, for reasons both personal and directly related to the movie. What I found throughout my two viewings is a strange film indeed, but definitely one that’s worth a watch.

The Favourite is a difficult film to pin down. No one description can really do justice to every aspect of the film. It’s a black comedy satirizing the British aristocracy and the socio political climate therein. It’s also a period piece recounting the reign of Queen Anne and those women who were closest to her. It’s also a political thriller examining the nature of power and how far people will go to get it. It may sound like it’s trying to bite off more than it may be able to chew, but all of these elements combine around one single story, and that story can be viewed through any number of these lenses. What’s more, each of them inform the other. You cannot analyze the lesbian affairs between Queen Anne and her servants Sarah and Abigail without touching upon their attempts to manipulate her fragile mind to utilize her limitless power for their own gains. You also can’t talk about the attempts of these women to gain power and navigate through court without touching upon the utter absurdity of how the environment and culture is displayed.

A large portion of this complexity comes from the brilliant script by Deborah Davis, a work that deftly balances its themes and subplots and benefits heavily from its female gaze. The three central figures are all women who exist in an alienating environment, a place where everyone is out for only themselves, and will resort to much unpleasantness in order to survive, where their natural inclination towards kindness and empathy and genuine human connection is gradually snuffed out in favor of self-servicing manipulation. Each of these characters has their own arc throughout the film, and I suspect that repeated viewings focusing upon each of them will bring an entirely different perspective to the film (I will have to test this theory in the future. The three women are played to perfection by stars Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz and Olivia Colman, who bring each of their characters inner lives, ambitions and desires to vibrant life. In an amusing twist on traditional gender roles, men are largely irrelevant to the plot outside of a couple of exceptions, and are mostly portrayed as vapid, frivolous creatures prone to outbursts of aggressive yet ineffectual emotions and sexual urges. The women, on the other hand, are smart, cunning and ambitious, and drive much of the film, and even though many of their arcs lead to their downfalls, it is not their feminine nature but rather the fickle and absurd nature of power that brings them down. One could accuse this of mindlessly switching gender roles without any actual commentary, but the satirical and ridiculous nature of the film allows this to fit in nicely with the greater picture, and contribute to the overall absurdity.

The final piece of the puzzle of what makes The Favourite work so well is director Yorgos Lanthimos’s unique vision. All of these elements come together in front of Lanthimos’s dynamic camerawork, with high and low angles showcasing the ongoing battle for power, while making its characters seem to tower over everyone else – even when those others may technically be taller than them. The world is filled with excess to the point of hilarity. Every wall is covered with an ornate, seemingly completely meaningless painting or tapestry, and aristocrats wander around with frivolous powdered wigs. There’s a level of surreal ridiculousness that makes it hard to take the proceedings entirely seriously, and that is a large part of the point that The Favourite is trying to make; that power, despite its allure and rewards, leads to a life that is ultimately frivolous and absurd.

Lanthimos also brings together many aspects of the script that may not have worked with another director’s touch. The camera focuses on what matters to the characters, not what matters in the greater scope of the world. A war goes on in France, and it dominates much conversation, but it affects almost nothing for these people beyond providing another means through which to accumulate power and wealth. Nothing regarding the war is shown on screen; no soldiers, no battle wounds, no survivors. There are barely any maps to be scene, and anything regarding it is sold with no emotion. On the other hand, scenes like a duck race or a group of baffoonish aristocrats throwing rotten fruit at a cavorting naked man are filmed in close up, with slow motion and intense classical music accentuating the action, framing it like it’s the most important thing in the world. There’s even a scene where Emma Stone’s Abigail sexually attends to her newly wedded husband on their wedding night with a bored, impassioned handjob, while the camera focuses on her face as she monologues about her worries and anxieties regarding her rivalry with Sarah. This is satire at its finest, taking commonly held ideas and conventions and framing them with absurdity to draw out a biting commentary; in this case, playing up the drama of these vain nobles to a mocking degree while the rest of the world suffers entirely off camera.

Despite that, The Favourite isn’t exactly a movie that’s going to be a huge hit with many – if not most – people who watch it. I’m not sure I can think of any glaring flaws, but it was difficult for me to really get on the same page as the film on my first viewing, and to those whom are less inclined to this sort of dark, nastily playful humor and ruthless characterization will likely find that even more so. Its ending is perhaps a little too dragged out, and its abstract (yet haunting) final image will prove baffling to many (though not me). Upon a second viewing, though, I found myself “getting it” a lot more. The humor seemed to click, and I started to enjoy myself. I’m not sure that I love it, despite my admiration for its message and craft, but I can definitely see myself growing to adore it as time goes on and it continues to fester in my brain.