The Favourite (2018)

Jack and I loved, as expected, this costume dramedy of two women vying for the attention of England's Queen Anne. Based on fact, it adds much absurdity to the pathos of the addled and ailing 18th Century Queen and the mean-spiritedness of the rivals.

Olivia Colman (last blogged for The Lobster) is wonderful as Anne and Rachel Weisz (most recently in these pages for Disobedience) and Emma Stone (last blogged for Battle of the Sexes) are delightfully vicious as the scheming Sarah and Abigail, respectively.

There was something quite disturbing in director Yorgos Lanthimos' The Lobster and I chose to skip his next project, but we both enjoyed the trailer for this one so much we knew we had to see it. Lanthimos works from a screenplay written by Deborah Davis (her debut) and Tony McNamara (new to me despite two other features and a number of TV episodes)

Even without the terrific acting and crazy story, the look of this picture is marvelous. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan (after Ginger & Rosa I saw his American Honey and The Meyerowitz Stories, to name just a few of his credits) uses wide angle and occasionally fish-eye lenses, all the better to show us the magnificent production design by Fiona Crombie (I did see her work in Truth and six episodes of Top of the Lake) and intricate costumes by Sandy Powell (I singled out her work in Carol and she was Oscar-nominated for it).

This movie cleaned up at the British Independent Film Awards, winning Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress for Colman, Best Supporting Actress for Weisz (Stone was also nominated and all three have been nominated for everything so far), Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Makeup & Hair, and Best Casting. I've made a list of selected nominations and awards sorted by title.

No composer is credited. Instead the music is classical orchestral works and an Elton John instrumental on harpsichord, all of which you can stream from this spotify link. I recently subscribed to Apple Music and most of the songs are there, too, except for Didascalies by Luc Ferrari (stream on youtube). It starts very quietly but gets louder and more insistent and I turned it off. In the movie, that discordant music, blessedly in short spurts, promotes the discord of the action.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are favouring, er, favoring, this one, averaging 94%, as opposed to is audiences at 63. We suggest you see it on a big screen before the Oscars.