The Favourite
I’m afraid I haven’t been able to establish, beyond reasonable doubt, whether or not Olivia Colman was aware, before or during the making of the outrageous new period drama The Favourite, in which she plays Queen Anne (1665–1714), that there was a chance she would be shortly ascending to Claire Foy’s vacated throne as Queen Elizabeth II (1926–) in the third series of Netflix’s royally addictive The Crown.
Whether she was aware, or whether she wasn’t, one hopes that Colman has now got the vicious attacks of gout, the threats of suicidal self-defenestration, the lobster racing, the cake gorging, the brandy swilling and the lesbian sex out of the way, and can concentrate instead on the selfless and stoical service to the nation. I bow to no fellow subject in my admiration for The Crown — soapy and delicious as it is — but our own beloved monarch (Anne’s second cousin eight times removed, in case you were wondering) was never this much of a scream. Or, if she ever was, I doubt the dutiful TV treatment will allow itself to let on.
The Favourite, the latest from the remarkable Greek film-maker Yorgos Lanthimos, is a tale of machination, intrigue and murderous ambition, and of three magnetic, spiteful women. Anne is vulnerable, ailing, alternately raving and simpering, and surrounded by 17 rabbits, each of which represents one of her dead children. “Everything hurts,” she moans. “Everyone leaves me.” There to mop her brow and tighten her corset and stiffen her resolve — and run the country in her place — is her domineering, bellicose friend and lover, Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough, magnificently realised by an imperious Rachel Weisz. Finally, a dangerous interloper, Abigail Hill, a noblewoman fallen on hard times, played by Emma Stone, with her porcelain skin and her flashing eyes and her knowing smirk, arrives at court as a servant, “a bit of scullery scraps”, and sets about usurping the power of her early champion, Lady Sarah.
(The men, when they appear, are either doltish soldiers, largely off-screen fighting
the French, or powder-puff politicos, randy nincompoops dancing around the edges of the action in their preposterous wigs and foppish frock coats. The costumes are by Sandy Powell, here demonstrating why she remains the most eminent in her field.)
So, then: three of the most watchable, most intelligent, wittiest actors alive, in a period piece red in tooth and claw, with a filthy mind and a foul mouth, grubby and grotesque and sumptuous and chic, all at the same time. As in an 18th-century picaresque, there are matter-of-fact chapter headings: “This Mud Stinks”; “I Dreamt I Stabbed You in the Eye”. As in a corny bodice-ripper, there are heaving bosoms and fits of the vapours. As in a Sunday night TV drama, there are ornate rooms, walls hung with tapestries, bowls
groaning with ripe fruit. There is crystal and there are candelabra. But this is a subversion of the conventions and constrictions of the bonnets-and-crinoline historical drama: there is a formal dance scene that degenerates into piss-taking 21st-century shape-throwing. There is coarseness, decadence, whoring and there are hand jobs. The gambling is on duck racing, not whist. The perspective is skewed. The music is jarring. The walls are closing in.
The Favourite is a blast. It is visceral, sensuous, vital, and with it Lanthimos confirms his reputation as one of the most exciting film-makers at work today. This will be difficult to top, but don’t bet against him. The man is on a roll.
—
The Favourite is out on 1 January 2019