History high-jacked to provide vehicle for contemporary sensibilities

Rating: 1/10 (2 January 2019)

I was invited to see this film by my wife and had no pre-conceptions other than admiring Olivia Colman's work on British television. I did not know the director or his previous films. I am no historian and know very little about the period in which the film is set. Understanding context is crucial to the telling of any story, yet the viewer is given very little information about how the main characters came to be in the situation depicted: How had Anne become queen? Who had given her multiple miscarriages and been father of her deceased offspring? We are not even given a date to hang the events on. This is probably deliberate since it gave the director the freedom that imprecision allows to impose his own agenda on what for many is little-known period of English history - which is exactly what he does.
What follows is two hours featuring some fine female performances, lavish costumes and location settings, incongruous dialogue, clumsy 'shock' scenes, sub-Greenaway imagery accompanied by a disjointed and distracting soundtrack.
Subsequent reading has revealed that director Lanthimos aims to produce a disconnection between dialogue and setting and to alienate through language - in this regard the film must surely be seen as a triumph.
However, I suggest that cinema relies upon more than the implementation of an intellectual conception. The almost unanimous praise of this film by critics is notably at odds with the comments of those who have actually paid to watch the film, many of whom were encouraged by praise heaped upon it. The audience I watched the film with were not rolling in the aisles in response to the apparently intended humour, aside from the odd embarrassed titter, it was silent and the speed with which they left the auditorium wondering what possible connection Elton John had with Queen Anne was notable.
This was probably not helped by the unreadable 'style over function' graphics used for the end-credits. As a professional graphic designer, I deplore the approach which is disrespectful to both contributors and audience. It typifies the arrogance of a film that has high-jacked history to provide a vehicle for contemporary sensibilities.
With little narrative momentum or development, The Favourite descends into over-long, self-indulgent tedium. A likely candidate for an armful of Oscars and Baftas.