The Favourite

Rating: 8/10 (10 January 2019)

The first two or three months of the new year mean Awards Season, I saw a good number of short clips and pictures for this movie, and I had a good feeling it would receive nominations and acclaim, so I went to see it, from Oscar and BAFTA nominated director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster). Basically set in the early 18th century, Britain is at war with France, and Queen Anne (Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe winning Olivia Colman) sits on the throne, she is extremely frail and ill due to gout. Anne shows little interest in governing the country, preferring instead to be doing eccentric activities, including racing ducks and playing with her seventeen rabbits, representing the children she has lost over the years. Anne's confidante and adviser Lady Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough (BAFTA winning, and Oscar and Golden Globe nominated Rachel Weisz) effectively rules the country by the confidences she passes to the Queen. Sarah's efforts to control Anne are undermined by Parliament member and influential landowner Robert Harley (Nicholas Hoult), who is responsible for bringing in state taxes for the war. Abigail Hill (Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated Emma Stone) is the impoverished younger cousin of Sarah, she arrives at Court seeking employment. Abigail is formerly a lady in society, but her father gambled away her family's good name, and he handed over his daughter to settle his debts to a German. Abigail is initially forced to do menial work as a scullery maid in the palace, but she sees an opportunity to ingratiate herself with Sarah, and eventually the Queen. Seeing Anne's condition, she uses herbs to aid the Queen's inflamed legs, she is initially punished by Sarah for her presumption. But the remedy eases the Queen's suffering, in gratitude Sarah makes Abigail her lady-in-waiting. Harley approaches Abigail, he hopes to use her as a spy in order to find out about Sarah's scheming and figure out a way to bypass her authority. Abigail initially rejects him, but then she is shocked to discover the secret lesbian relationship between Anne and Sarah. Abigail becomes interested in Anne's homosexual inclination and begins planning her own ascent to win the Queen's favour. While Sarah is focused on the war effort, Abigail takes advantage of her preoccupation to form a close friendship with Anne, who is easily influenced, and it soon develops into a sexual relationship. Sarah soon becomes aware of Abigail's plotting, she tells the Queen she needs to continue the war and double the tax, she also attempts to have Abigail removed from service and sent away. To get rid of Sarah, Abigail poisons her tea with herbs from the garden, these cause Sarah to fall off her horse while riding, and the horse panics and drags her away into the forest, she vanishes for several days. Queen Anne believes that Sarah has temporarily abandoned her in order to make her jealous, so she takes Abigail into her favour. Her first reward is to be allowed to accept the marriage proposal of Samuel Masham, 1st Baron Masham (Joe Alwyn), the marriage reinstates Abigail's noble standing as a baroness. Sarah was found bruised, bloodied and unconscious in the forest, she wakes up with a large scar on her cheek, she is being sheltered in a brothel. Sarah eventually returns to court and issues an ultimatum to Anne: send Abigail away, or she will release the secret letters between her and Anne that detail their sexual relationship to the press. This threat backfires and destroys the relationship between Anne and Sarah, Sarah does burn the letters to amend things, but she is ultimately stripped of her offices and sent away from court. Abigail is promoted to Keeper of the Privy Purse, she uses her status to present what she claims to be evidence that Sarah had been embezzling money, which is in fact an innocent win, but Sarah and her husband are exiled from Britain. Following her victory, Abigail's ego and gluttony for luxury starts to inflate the same way Sarah's did, in a moment of maliciousness she abuses on of the Queen's rabbits, but Anne notices this and takes immediate offense. Anne responds by pulling Abigail's hair and ordering her to massage her legs as a servant would. Anne re-establishes her stature as Queen, and it appears Abigail is forced to accept becoming subservient again. Also starring Mark Gatiss as John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, James Smith as Sidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of Godolphin and Jenny Rainsford as Mae. Colman gives a fantastic performance as the erratic, temperamental and often child-like ruler, Stone is good as the fallen aristocrat worming her way up and becoming more manipulative and sadistic, and Weisz is great being the astute and fearsome political puppeteer, and Hoult is memorable as the posh and sneaky aristocrat. The story explores the reign of Queen Anne, through the deceptions and cunning rivalry of the cousins trying to become the Queen's "favourite", I certainly questioned how much of the story was based on fact, there is a lot of swearing and adult material going on, wonderfully weird at times, it is well written, the costumes and period detail is great, and the dark material is divine, a must-see historical period comedy drama. It was nominated the Oscars for Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Original Screenplay, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing, it won the BAFTAs for Outstanding British Film of the Year, Best Original Screenplay, Best Make Up/Hair, Best Costume Design and Best Production Design, and it was nominated for Best Film, Best Editing and Best Cinematography, and it was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay and Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy. Very good!