It's Good to Be the Queen

Rating: 8/10 (23 December 2018)

The Favourite is a movie that tells the real life interesting story of Queen Anne (Colman) who did, indeed, allow herself to be influenced and manipulated by two women that were total polar opposites -- the extremely wealthy and beautiful Duchess of Marlborough (Weisz) who bullied the Queen, and the Duchess' lower class cousin Abigail Masham (Stone) who flattered the Queen. While this serves as the core story-line, the movie takes on its own interpretations to fill in the historical gaps, although many of which are actually based upon reliable sources.
Ultimately, The Favourite is a well-done historical drama with some comedic elements, and packaged in a way that brings the early 18th century English court alive with beautiful sets/locations, elaborate costumes, and dry wit that is typical of English dialogue.
While there are many reviews from others complaining that the movie was boring and lacking on comedic content, perhaps they missed that this is a historically based story intended to be realistic. So you shouldn't expect to see a real 18th century Queen of England to be depicted as a stand-up Sarah Silverman delivering a litany of crude, adolescent jokes. If that is what you are looking for, you probably need look no further than the $1 movie bin at Walmart.