A Well-Balanced, Deliciously Mean-Spirited Battle of Wits

Rating: 8/10 (11 February 2019)

A pair of disingenuous young aspirants vie over Queen Anne's favor amidst the pomp and presumption of 18th century England. Sarah, the stand-offish, incumbent chief of staff, brusquely runs the country while her queen deals with depression, near-madness and a nasty case of the gout. Abigail, a disgraced former upper-class lady who stumbles into the palace smelling of dung and desperation, uses a delicate, sensitive touch to sway the monarch's opinion from the harsher methods of her rival. This pair launches a string of increasingly spiteful schemes and manipulations, always aiming to boost their own standing at the expense of the other, and even the queen herself isn't above such games. A vivid display of willpower, gamesmanship and raw nastiness masked under the guise of civility.
Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone are both excellent as the dueling ladies, but I found the experienced, versatile Olivia Colman's turn as Queen Anne most impressive. Nuanced and complex, her performance transforms a rather frail, tragic figure into something larger, something damaged but still formidable. A Best Actress nomination well-earned.
The camerawork sometimes grows over-ambitious (many early shots use a distracting wide-angle lens that feels out of place) and the ending is a bit of a head-scratcher, but otherwise it's a well-balanced, deliciously mean-spirited battle of wits.