Great Anna, Whom Three Realms Obey

Rating: 8/10 (16 January 2019)

The script for "The Favourite" was written as long ago as 1998, but the project spent twenty years in development hell as writer Deborah Davis tried to persuade the reluctant studios that, contrary to their assumptions, there was indeed a market for films with a lesbian theme, with three women in the leading roles and with no male characters of equivalent importance. The times appear to be changing in this respect, as recent weeks have seen two historical dramas with a lesbian theme, the other being "Colette".
"The Favourite" tells the story of the rivalry between Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough, and her cousin Abigail Hill at the court of Queen Anne in the early 18th century. Anne (1702-1714), the younger daughter of a younger son, was one of Britain's more unlikely monarchs. She owed her elevation to the throne to a combination of three factors- the failure of her uncle Charles II to produce a legitimate heir, the conversion of her father James II to Catholicism, which led to his being overthrown after a brief three-year reign, and the premature death of her childless elder sister Mary II. Sarah was the wife of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, a man who has gone down in history as something of a British national hero, but this film only strengthened my view that his main achievement was to win a series of tactically brilliant but strategically meaningless victories in a pointless war. His stately home Blenheim Palace was, metaphorically speaking, built on the graves of all those slaughtered in its namesake battle.
The Anne we see in this movie bears little relation to Pope's "Great Anna, whom three realms obey". She is an eccentric woman, confined to a wheelchair and prematurely aged by ill-health. (At the date when the story opens, 1708, she would only have been in her early forties). She shows little interest in governing, preferring the company of her pet rabbits to that of her ministers and official advisers. The effective ruler of the country is Sarah Churchill, her friend, her confidante and, in this version of history, her lover. (Most historians, in fact, have taken the view that Anne was not actually a lesbian and that Sarah's accusations to that effect were merely sour grapes). Sarah's position, however, is undermined by the arrival at Court of her pretty younger cousin. Abigail, whose branch of the family have fallen into poverty, is at first forced to work as a maid, but rises to become a lady-in-waiting, a position which she exploits in an attempt to supplant Sarah in Anne's affections.
The film has been described as a comedy, and there is indeed something comical, even farcical, about Olivia Colman's portrayal of the silly, petulant and childish Queen, and about the machinations of the two rival cousins. We are, however, never allowed to forget that serious matters are at stake. While Anne plays with her rabbits, war is raging on the continent, a war which Sarah is determined to prolong for as long as possible because she sees it as providing an opportunity for her husband, the commander of the British forces, to distinguish himself and to earn even more rewards from a grateful nation which has already given him a Dukedom and Blenheim Palace. Abigail's chief ally at court is Robert Harley, the leader of the peace party and a sworn enemy of the Churchills. As played by Nicholas Hoult, Harley comes across as an extravagant dandy, but beneath his foppish exterior his is a voice of reason, even if his pacifism may owe less to moral or humanitarian concerns than to resentment of the taxes he and other landowners have to pay to support the war effort.

There are two very good performances, and one excellent one, in the three main roles. Rachel Weisz's Sarah is a rather mannish character who frequently wears male clothing, yet Weisz is still able to suggest the sexual attractiveness which lies at the heart of her domination of Anne, whereas Emma Stone's Abigail is more conventionally feminine. Stone also deserves praise for a faultless British accent; she clearly did not want to take the lazy way out of "Well, British people in the early eighteenth century probably did not speak in the same way as we do today, so it doesn't matter if Abigail sounds a bit American". The acting honours, however, must go to Colman as the Queen, whom she makes a curiously sympathetic character despite her silliness and obvious incompetence as a ruler.
In some ways this is a typical British costume drama, but unlike most "heritage cinema" productions this one has a strongly satirical element. Indeed, its relevance to modern politics has probably grown since the project was first mooted in the nineties. The way in which John and Sarah Churchill manage to prolong the War of the Spanish Succession to their own advantage recalls allegations that certain members of the Bush administration were seeking to profit personally from the Iraq War. And we can all think of politicians (no names mentioned!) who, even if there is no sexual impropriety involved, allow themselves to be manipulated by "advisers" whose advice may be motivated by self-interest rather than the national good. 8/10