Deliciously Wicked

Rating: 10/10 (3 December 2018)

"The Favourite" is a deliciously wicked and fictionalized account of what might have taken place between Queen Anne of England, her friend and confidante Lady Sarah, and a maid with aspirations named Abigail, as Sarah and Abigail vied for the Queen's favor.
Director Yorgos Lanthimos, whose last two films, "The Lobster" and "The Killing of a Sacred Deer," were marred by his determination to make his audience queasy, goes a little easier on us with this one. If you like his style, don't worry -- the film has his fingerprints all over it. But whereas those other films mentioned were so weird as to pull me out of the narrative, "The Favourite" is more like "Dogtooth," the film that introduced me to Lanthimos in the first place, in that the weirdness is hypnotic and kept me on the edge of my seat waiting to see where this whacky movie was going to go next. And unlike "The Lobster," which apparently was supposed to be a comedy, "The Favourite" actually made me laugh many times.
The acting is stellar, with Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone all giving crackerjack performances. The film explores the lengths to which people will go in order to yield power over one another. Though all three ladies get plenty of opportunities to shine, the film feels more "about" Abigail than anyone, and we watch her first wrestle with her morals as she realizes how skeezy she will have to be to beat Lady Sarah at her game, then commit to doing what she has to do to be top dog, and finally left wondering why she wanted to be top dog in the first place, a warning given to her by rival Lady Sarah that she refuses to heed. And Olivia Colman's Queen Anne is a wolf in sheep's clothing, her physical and emotional frailty a camouflage for her monstrous obsession with being adored.
"The Favourite" looks stunning, the kind of film that wins Oscars for production design, costume design, and cinematography but actually deserves them. The film reminded me once in a while of Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" in its look and tone, though "The Favourite" isn't afraid to get its hands dirty whereas "Barry Lyndon" remained stately and pristine.
Easily one of the best movies of the year.
Grade: A+