It's hard to know which is more pretentious...

Rating: Null/10 (10 April 2020)

The film itself, or the highest rating reviews?
For some reason, people seem to think enjoying this weirdly filmed, annoyingly scored piece of work makes them in some way more knowledgeable about film making than the non-purist.
Films, this one is not an exception, are made for profit, not just for the feeling of superiority they might engender among their viewers.
Emperor's (or should that be Queen's) new clothes of the highest order.
Where to start?
A few "C bombs" thrown in for tittilation value and the playground conversation enhancing lesbian scenes. Not that any schoolboys would watch long enough to get the excitement necessary to produce that conversation in the first place.
A comedy which doesn't make the viewer laugh (or even smile in our case) is not a comedy. Just calling something "darkly comic" or "black humour" doesn't make it funny when the actual humour is missing.
Some of the camera angles and lenses used could cause a feeling of motion-sickness.
The use of repetitive stringed instrument notes bordering on the intolerable. I assume they are in there to give the impression of tension building. Without any tense ending to a scene when it finally subsides.
A sure sign of a bad film, and make no mistake, this IS a bad film, is that the trailers for it gave NO indication of what it was about.
I STILL have no idea of what it was about. Unless it's just 2 hours of the explanation of a tryst or two!!!
The graphics are as pretentious and pointless as the rest of the film and many of the higher rated reviews I read.
Little bits of nastiness between characters, for no legitimate purpose are thrown in, but any references to real history or events are scant, at best.
Overall a triumph for the director, who obviously knew exactly what he wanted.
Which could have been OK if everyone else could have had a clue what he was thinking.
I truly wanted to find a reason to give 2 stars to The Favouite, especially having looked forward to seeing it for so long - which is testimony to the hype surrounding it paying off - but I couldn't.
The single star is for costume and scenery.
The rest, from the "story" to the acting, the camera work, the sound and especially the direction is overblown, tacky and hollow.
Honestly one of the most over-rated films ever made.