Queen Anne: gouty, doughty - and gay

Rating: 8/10 (3 January 2019)

It's the early 1700s. England's war with France is not going well, and the Queen is playing with her rabbits. She has 17 rabbits, in memory of the 17 children she lost or miscarried. When she's not playing with rabbits, Queen Anne (Olivia Colman), gouty and doughty, is playing with her latest squeeze, Sarah Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz).
Yes, dear fellow citizens of the realm, our sometime sovereign lady Queen Anne was a "friend of Dusty" (long before Dusty). There is (Wikipedia) historical evidence (mostly letters) of a whole series of attachments to ladies of the court. In the movie Sarah's cousin Abigail (Emma Stone) inveigles her way into the palace and, surprisingly soon, into the Queen's bedchamber. The feud for Anne's affections has ramifications in Parliament as well as in the palace.
There are some lesbian scenes here, plus a small amount of heterosexual sex in the movie - played for laughs - and a large amount of swearing, with liberal use of both F-word and C-word. The somewhat camp vulgarity and the brisk pace of the narrative will have reminded many in the audience of the CARRY_
-ON comedies. I was more reminded of THE MADFNESS OF KING GEORGE, Alan Bennett's royal Regency romp, which wore its lese-majesty with a similarly brazen air of triumph.
The acting by the three female stars is nothing less than glorious. The male cast members are also outstanding in more ways than one. There are some weird camera angles which I found distracting and some of the music score is painful to hear, but this is another right-royal romp, tragi-comic with a bias towards comedy, not quite as enjoyable as Mr Bennett's, but a splendid visual feast.