Lanthimos strikes again.

Rating: 10/10 (7 February 2019)

With films like 'The Lobster' and 'Killing of a Sacred Deer', Yorgos Lanthimos has created another macarbe masterpeice that defies modern day story telling and delivers a film that more than holds its own against the directors cult hits. 'The Favourite', starring Olivia Colman plays Queen Anne, England's overbearing and tortured ruler who is at war with France. She is flanked by assistants, military strategists, politicians and her trusted advisor and secret lover Sarah, played by Rachel Weisz. The Queen has little interest in governing her country, she prefers to engage in eccentric activities like racing ducks and playing with her 17 rabbits, each representing a child which has died at childbirth. Not only is she waging an expensive war with another country, but battles with a mryiad of diseases including gout have her writhing on the floor in pain like a wounded animal. Sarah tends to the Queen's every need, her confidante's tollerance to the volitale and childlike ruler never seeming to disrupt their taboo love affair that remains the pairs sole selfish focus in a time of international uncertainty and turmoil. The relationship between the two is disturbed when Sarah's young poor deprived cousin Abigail, Emma Stone, arrives at the palace seeking employment, she has had a rough, working class upbringing and now visions herself rising out of her slumber and into the world of aristocracy. If Sarah isnt aware of this, the Queen most certainly is as Abigail works her way into her majestys inner cirlce of indulgance and lust, putting Sarah on the outs. As Abigails cunning dirty plan comes to fruition, Anne's gluttenous lifestyle spirals out of control and Sarah finds herself out of the running for the Queen's unnerving affection. Lanthimos has directed an instant classic, inviting the viewer into the inner sanctums of an unconventional royal existence laid bare by the thrilling contest between two servants whose purpose for contol differ greatly. Each female character weilds power at one point during the film, but the great allurement about 'The Favourite' is that we get to see their vunrebility and inevietable sorrow.