Not the best Lanthimos, but still a good movie

Rating: 8/10 (15 February 2019)

It is curious to think that Yorgos Lanthimos' most conventional and less "insane" film is being the most successful of his career. In fact, "The favourite" that has been collecting awards. There are already a total of 134, entitled to a Golden Globe for actress Olivia Colman and seven awards Bafta, The film still won ten Oscar nominations. But "The favourite" is far from having the complications, the sadisms and to cause that discomfort that had its previous works, "The killing of the sacred deer" and "The Lobster". With a more palatable film that was not written by Lanthimos and his latecomer Efthymis Filippou, the Greek director eventually got the chance to win more sympathy from the members of the academy.
And this proves that no matter how much the Oscar tries to be more sympathetic to other, less expensive Oscar production - and the "Black Panther" nomination for the best film signals that - the academy always has its limits. Films in which you have to decide whether or not a family member with echoes in Greek mythology such as "The Sacrifice of the Sacred Deer" or a little more intricate scripts like "The Lobster" still has not come this far. Everything, however, can change with the winds.
But of course "The Favourite" is still a good movie because of it. If there is a mark of Lanthimos in this film is the irony and the almost contempt with which its characters are treated. Lanthimos is almost marvelously cruel to ridicule royalty with a subtlety and at the same time a caricatured tone of a great charizard. All right with a few shots that send a spectator who seems to be just lurking, looking through the keyhole and scenarios of kitschy exaggeration, a luxury that provocatively borders on bad taste.
In their hands, the whole monarchy tradition is pathetic. The way the queen should be treated (never turn to her, do not look at her without being asked) the ridiculous makeup of the men and even a fierce run of ducks and lobsters. Everything sounds kitsch as if Lanthimos told us: "How did we sustain this ridiculous theater for so many centuries and still today?"
In the center of "The Favourite" is a dispute involving hatred, jealousy, envy between two women, Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) and Abigail (Emma Stone) for the attention of Queen Anne (beautifully lived by Olivia Colman). The fight is ridiculous, childish. Worse, rich and spoiled children.
From the outset a rivalry has been established between the two distant cousins. One wanting to maintain the power of influence over the queen and, consequently, over the government, which is facing a military battle against France. The other, an ex-lady who lost everything in some failed marriage wanting to recover the money and status she had once had. It's all about power, influence, and wealth.
For this, both use all the weapons they have. If they sabotage, they ironize themselves, all with the perceptive look of the queen, who loves the dispute of the two to seduce her. At bottom, the queen has a wit at the same time that Lanthimos exposes the strange eccentricities of the monarchs.
At bottom, the question of war inside the palace has more to do with the mood of the queen and the political and extra political games inside the palace than properly a practical and objective question. But is it so in any political scenario, we could argue? Yes, but when it comes to royalty it gains even more proportions in the futilities and eccentricities of the court.
Lanthimos filmed the ridiculous with a mixture of satire and poison and, best of all, making everything seem very serious. It is not your most interesting film, but how can you not delight in the display of luxury and kitsch in a court of futile and miserable values such as that built by the Greek director?
In fact, Lanthimos did it again. And on this we can only applaud.