X
- 2018
- R
- Searchlight Pictures
- 1 h 59 m
- 2018
- R
- Searchlight Pictures
- 1 h 59 m
Summary Early 18th century. England is at war with the French. Nevertheless, duck racing and pineapple eating are thriving. A frail Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) occupies the throne and her close friend Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) governs the country in her stead while tending to Anne’s ill health and mercurial temper. When a new servant Abigail (Emm...
Directed By: Yorgos Lanthimos
Written By: Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara
- 2018
- R
- Searchlight Pictures
- 1 h 59 m
- 2018
- R
- Searchlight Pictures
- 1 h 59 m
The Favourite
7.7
Where to Watch
Summary Early 18th century. England is at war with the French. Nevertheless, duck racing and pineapple eating are thriving. A frail Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) occupies the throne and her close friend Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) governs the country in her stead while tending to Anne’s ill health and mercurial temper. When a new servant Abigail (Emm...
Directed By: Yorgos Lanthimos
Written By: Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 53 Critic Reviews
91
98% Positive
52 Reviews
52 Reviews
2% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 53 Critic Reviews
91
98% Positive
52 Reviews
52 Reviews
2% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
A spiky, pithy, and unconventional delight.
Most of all you remember Colman, in a performance that achieves its power, in no small part, by utterly destroying our understanding of what power looks like. She beams and scowls, brays and bleeds, shatters and disintegrates. She rules.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 524 User Ratings
7.7
81% Positive
424 Ratings
424 Ratings
9% Mixed
49 Ratings
49 Ratings
10% Negative
51 Ratings
51 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 524 User Ratings
7.7
81% Positive
424 Ratings
424 Ratings
9% Mixed
49 Ratings
49 Ratings
10% Negative
51 Ratings
51 Ratings
A true masterpiece just like Dogtooth and The Lobster. Yorgos Lanthimos is one of the best directors of this era.
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The Favourite has ribaldry and intelligence to burn, a deliciously entertaining period piece that feels liberated by its period, rather than restrained and invigorates like a glass of wine thrown violently in your face.
The Favourite is a pleasure to watch. It’s weird without being alienating, dirty without being cheap. And you’d be hard-pressed to find a better acting trio this fall. What fun The Favourite is, while still striking a few resonantly melancholy chords here and there.
Even if this unique absurdist has not exactly been your cup of tea previously, he might finally win you over with this deliciously “Dangerous Liaisons”-esque and thoroughly female-driven period film, co-written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara.
This is a skewer-sharp and scabrously funny film, stuffed with quotable deadpan exchanges, often punctuated by that now-trademark Lanthimos camera manoeuvre, the wide-angle whip pan that seems to ask “now what?”
The actresses are so expert, especially Colman, with her grievous, hardbitten woe, that you may not care, but if one is to mock this sort of historical extravaganza, I much prefer the nutbrain Monty Python approach to all this deep-dish folderol.
[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]
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I went to the screening of “The Favourite” wanting and expecting to love it. I just can’t. There’s a lot to like about this film – the cast and the dialogue are fabulous. And while the crackling dialogue portrayed in the film’s trailer is delivered fully throughout the film, be aware that this is no comedy. In fact, the theme being developed by Director Yorgos Lanthimos is just too bleak for many moviegoers and most human beings. “The Favourite” advances the thesis that all humans are venal, petty and self-absorbed. Genuine kindness is rare. Expecting people to help others, absent some sort of self-interest, is a fool’s errand. The film doesn’t just posit that people’s negative traits tend to overwhelm their better instincts; it advances the premise that we live in a world devoid of genuine goodness. It’s all a little hard to bear. However, “The Favourite” is clearly the most accessible and upbeat of Lanthimos’ recent films. In “The Lobster” (2015), single people are required to spend time at The Hotel, where they must either find a compatible mate within 45 days or be transformed into the animal of their choosing. His 2017 film “The Killing of the Sacred Deer” had some critics believing the film was a masterful meditation on cruelty, while others described the film itself as cruel.
“The Favourite” centers on the reign of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman), who ascended the British throne in 1702. In no small part because she knows frighteningly little about affairs of state, Anne is strongly influenced by Lady Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz), Duchess of Marlborough. Churchill gives her cousin, Abigail Masham (Emma Stone), a menial job in the royal household after Abigail’s family has fallen from grace. Only too late does Sarah recognize that Abigail is a more-than-worthy rival for the queen’s affections. While the film is hard to bear, it’s not hard to watch. Colman, Weisz (both alumnae of “The Lobster”) and Stone are at the top of their games, making the viewing experience completely worthwhile, even while the film feels confusing in a few places, soul-crushing in several. For American audiences, Colman is a punch line – in the best possible sense: she has spent many years becoming an overnight sensation. Known in the UK primarily for her TV work, Colman has a long string of impressive credentials, most recently in “The Night Manager” (2016), a quirky stepmother in Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s TV adaptation of “Fleabag” (2016) and a sublime performance in “Broadchurch” (2013-2017). In the UK, Colman is so ubiquitous she even appears in the current British Airways safety video. Weisz and Stone have both generated awards buzz of their own, but this is Colman’s show. She demands full attention despite portraying a character prone to self-pity and cloying neediness who is completely out of her element when it comes to behaving like a responsible head of state. (If her face were orange, viewers might see an analogy in contemporary events.)
“The Favourite” is least effective as a narrative to be taken literally, much more worthwhile as a meditation on the human condition that encourages debate and self-reflection. This film is powerful, necessary and important; it’s just not a lot of fun along the way.
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The director of this film, a Greek director named Yorgos Lanthimos, is known for his very bizarre and absurdist style of plot and filmmaking, and this film is no exception. Being a big fan of his most recent previous films (The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer), I was really looking forward to this one. Set in early 1700s England, it follows Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) and two young women (Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz) vying for her admiration and attention as her servants, all in the midst of a war with France. Like I said, the film is very absurdist in nature, and is infused with plenty of deadpan and dark humor, which kept the film interesting and amusing enough at times. In addition, Colman, Stone, and Weisz were all brilliant and spot-on, their performances fitting and adapting to the film's absurdism quite well. Naturally, with its period setting, it was also a very aesthetically pleasing film to watch as well, with lavish production design, costumes, etc. On the flip side, unfortunately, while the film started out so promising, lively, and energetic in the first half, much like a major character that suffers a stroke in the second half, the film began to really slow down and drag, losing much sense of direction, and feeling rather aimless the more it progressed. Overall, aside from a witty (but also cringy at times) screenplay full of dialogue that's somehow humorous and shocking all at once often times, striking performances from the cast, and incredibly detailed production values, I found the film to be rather weak and half-baked in terms of story. Very promising and amusing first half, but a very slack, underwhelming, and disappointing second half that left much to be desired for me.
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[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]
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1 star for Emma Stone - well played character (At first I thought that she would be the "good" character but then I kinda started hating her two faced persona. Really grabbed my attention with that!)
1 star for the interesting angles (cinematography I guess)
1 star for the idea how a person can go back and forth in society and that in the end it doesn't even matter Overall, the story was interesting but somehow the movie was too... slow and bland.
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Production Company
Searchlight Pictures,
Film4,
Waypoint Entertainment,
Element Pictures,
Scarlet Films,
TSG Entertainment,
Investment Incentives for the Irish Film Industry Provided by the Government of Ireland,
BFI Film Fund,
Bord Scannán na hÉireann / The Irish Film Board
Release Date Nov 23, 2018
Duration 1 h 59 m
Rating R
Awards
Academy Awards, USA
• 1 Win & 10 Nominations
Golden Globes, USA
• 1 Win & 5 Nominations
Gold Derby Awards
• 5 Wins & 18 Nominations
