Cruel Absurdity

Rating: 3/10 (28 January 2019)

I've given one star for costume design. One for the few funny lines that kept me hoping for redemption. Finally a star for three solid performances by the principles.
The Favourite often played like a live action cartoon with oddly placed physical comedy in dim or dark backgrounds.(Ex. the dance sequence or Harley shoving Abigail off a garden wall on a nighttime stroll) Or tight nearly motionless shots filling the frame like the final sequences of the film.
It was very flat, dark and superficial but not in the good noir way I think intended. That one dimensional quality pervaded the character's treatment as well. I really couldn't figure what POV or context the director wanted me to have. Was this a comedy, satire, historical drama, tragedy or what?
Certainly drama wasn't the target for there was too little depth afforded the character's to elicit empathy. The most human was the queen and she was treated the most cruel by the other characters and the production. Who cares if a lonely sick monarch of 300 years past may or may not have been gay or if she used those same manipulative and deceitful subjects around her to warm her bed.
So comedy must have been the default but it was cruelly handled in so many ways. Right through to the ending. I sadly found it a mean spirited sleezefest. There's enough of that everyday in the news and TV. I couldn't get home to shower fast enough.