says Leo McKinstry
PURE TOSH
RARELY in the field of British entertainment has there been such a chasm between overblown hype and miserable substance.
The Favourite is a triumph of self- indulgent pretension and fashionable politics over art.
Seduced by the reviews, my expectations were dashed by the vulgar, shallow drama that unfolded over 119 interminable minutes. Indeed, my wife and I would have left had we not been squashed into a corner of our packed local cinema.
So we were forced to endure it all to its incomprehensible end, which featured a herd of rabbits and a lot of anguished leg-rubbing.
The characterisation is thin and narrative power entirely absent. England during Queen Anne’s reign was a place of wit and wordplay, yet there is not one shred of verbal sophistication in the script.
Instead, this ‘comedy’ relies for laughs on crude slapstick and ever cruder language, more Mrs Brown’s Boys than Restoration comedy genius John Vanbrugh.
We are given no background to the central figures, and as for the sub-plot, government support for war against France, we never learn the reason for conflict.
A sexual agenda is crowbarred into the plot. In a lesbian power battle, the Duchess and Abigail Masham compete for the affections and bed of Queen Anne.
There is no historical evidence for these sexual relationships and Queen Anne shared a bed with her husband until her death.
Because the women’s motivations are purely mercenary, it is impossible to engage emotionally with them, or the eccentric Queen.
This goes to the heart of the film’s central, repugnant conceit. With women dominant in its three key roles, and men marginalised, The Favourite has been hailed as a #MeToo victory for feminism.
But far from representing strong heroines, the courtiers are stereotypes of manipulative, capricious women. And there’s a cruelly misogynistic voyeurism about the portrayal of Queen Anne. At times, it feels like spying on the deranged resident of a nursing home.
Olivia Colman is nothing like as good as Glenn Close in The Wife — also nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. That is a far better film than The Favourite, but, perhaps because it is not politically correct or wilfully grotesque, it has not received the same attention.
It is possible to write a moving work about royal vulnerability in history, as Alan Bennett proved with The Madness Of George III.
But the task requires humane sensitivity and an understanding of our heritage — qualities that The Favourite profoundly lacks.