• The Favourite

5/1/24 (Wed)

Yorgos Lanthimos’ 2018 film reinvents the relationships between England’s 18th-century Queen Anne (a tremendous Olivia Colman) and two confidantes, cousins Sarah (Rachel Weisz) and Abigail (Emma Stone), who vie to displace one another as the monarch’s favorite. The queen bears various ailments that leave her unable to walk steadily and doesn’t always appear to be entirely on the ball. Often in a moody state, she tends to anger when she sees people enjoying themselves, often screaming at them to stop. Her infirmities leave her dependent on her aides. Which is where the conflict comes in.

The movie revolves largely around the war of tongues among the dueling cousins, both in their verbal sparring and more literal use on the queen in the bedroom. While the characters are loosely based on history, Lanthimos ups the lesbian quotient significantly, though for their part, the cousins, both comfortably married, use sex purely as a weapon to win over the sovereign (who at one point praises how Abigail “puts her tongue in me”).

Sarah has long been close to the ailing monarch and easily manipulates her, giving her immense political power. She maintains her position by telling the monarch the hard truth (e.g., “That makeup makes you look like a dead badger”) and pledging absolute loyalty, not to mention the after-hours stimulation. She is aiming to continue the war with France in order to boost the fortunes of her husband, the Duke of Marlborough, which will involve greater prestige for herself but a large increase in taxes on the public. She must vie with opposition leader Robert Harley, who wants to stop the costly war and sue for peace while England has the advantage.

Meanwhile, Abigail is from an illustrious family that has fallen low due to her father’s gambling habit and has come to the court as a simple maid. Her arrival is far from glorious: upon her dispatch to the palace, she is shoved indifferently out of the carriage into the mud. However, she quickly catches on to Sarah’s ways and manages to squeeze into her territory. She tries to push her cousin aside by flattering the queen, attending closely to her needs, lavishing care on her 17 rabbits (one for each of the queen’s miscarried or dead children), and of course engaging in bedtime service. She is also used by Harley to convince the queen to reach a peace treaty with France.

After much back and forth, Abigail pulls an All About Eve on Sarah that turns the queen against the latter. Anne banishes Sarah from the palace and decides, almost in spite, to halt the war. As Sarah leaves, she says cryptically to the triumphant Abigail, “You think you’ve won, don’t you?” Eventually, Abigail oversteps when she tries to implicate Sarah in stealing from the queen, which the monarch instantly realizes is not true – whatever her other faults, Sarah was intensely loyal. Anne is also unhappy when she spies Abigail, grown comfortable in power, torturing one of the rabbits. At the end, Anne orders Abigail brusquely to massage her scarred legs, then grabs the former maid’s hair and glares down as the latter rubs away. Abigail, aware that the queen has caught on, realizes that she is trapped in this life just like the equally helpless rabbits, whose images are startlingly overlaid with hers.

The three women are the unquestioned stars of this show, with males only bit players. Typically for modern films, the cousins are preternaturally strong, even in physical fights with much larger men. Abigail dominates her new husband, satisfying him only by hand on their wedding night as she plots her next move against Sarah. You’d think he’d be more insistent given the occasion, and the culture at the time surely would have backed him. But Hollywood works in its own universe.

Still, the film benefits from solid performances by all three main actresses, especially a fabulously subtle turn by Olivia Colman as the queen. The one-upping exchanges between the cousins are hilarious in a generally smart script, and the story is straightforward and entertaining. The director uses odd camera angles at times for no discernible reason but overall lets the story unfold naturally. A fun romp.