A favorite among this year's Oscar nominees

Rating: 8/10 (5 August 2019)

Everyone loves a good story about the royals, right? The extravagance, the clothes, the palace, all the things that we can only dream of but will never have. So to get a peek for a short period in their lives piques our interest, and what's a story about the royals without a scandal or two? In the early 18th century Queen Anne is suffering from depression after losing all of her 17 children, majority to miscarriages and stillbirths, but is surrounded by political maneuvering and finds comfort between two cousins competing for her attention and pushing their own agendas. Duchess Sarah (Rachel Weisz) has been busy acting as Anne's right hand woman, waging a war with the French as well as the opposing political party that she barely has time to comfort the queen. Enter Abigail (Emma Watson) who seizes the opportunity to rise back among the aristocrats after their family's fall from grace due to her father's wrongdoings. The power struggle between the two is enough to give a whole new meaning to having tea in England.
The film is as quirky as it can get (will also remind you of last year's quirky nominee 'The Phantom Thread'): the wigs had their own trailer, natural light was used as much as possible due to the warm weather (they're in England!) and the beautiful seemingly authentic costumes were made from recycled materials, some from EBay. They were on a tight budget that after using some wigs and costumes for one scene they'd deconstruct and recycle it to be used for another. This while costume designer Sandy Powell was also working on the costumes for Mary Poppins Returns, both of which she's nominated for Best Costume. If I were to bet on someone from this team winning an Oscar, it would be her. The three main cast (all women!) did very well for themselves as well: Olivia Colman for Best Actress, Rachel and Emma are both vying for the Supporting Actress. If Olivia Colman wins, their ensemble would be all Oscar winners: Rachel for The Constant Gardener and Emma for La La Land. For the latter, this is the 4th Oscar nominated movie she's in (if my count is right), after The Help, Birdman and La La Land. I remember in Birdman I said given the right roles she has a bright future ahead. And based on her statistics, out of all her total nominations of 63, she won 31 of them giving her a 50% win rate. Nothing to laugh at for someone that started in The House Bunny and Easy A.
The film though admittedly did not set out to do an accurate depiction of what really transpired, still made a great point of the following items which are still relevant in today's times: a powerful leader with flailing health, manipulated by an aide with her own agenda (someone local comes to mind); that being a good ruler has nothing to with gender but women are less likely to go to war; and the eternal question of whether you want the kind of love that's sweet but fake or the kind which is brutal but honest (kinda like news, too.) As one character in the movie said: Favor is a breeze that shifts direction all the time. The question is which side will you be on when it all falls down?