The Favourite - An Atypical Costume Drama
A significant chunk of recommendations I get come from NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour. It’s a very fun podcast and I highly recommend it to everyone. So when they raved about the costume drama set during the rule of England’s Queen Anne - The Favourite - I decided to see it. The trailers hadn’t been particularly note-worthy and it hadn’t really been on my radar before then, but I was convinced by their positive review.
Last night I finally saw it. I came out of the film impressed, confused, thoughtful, and a little angry – although that last bit is because the final scene involves a main character hurting a bunny for fun which aside from animal cruelty being absolutely abhorrent, hurts especially because I really love bunnies. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure if I should do a review at all. But it really is an exceptional piece of filmmaking, and I haven’t stopped pondering it since the film’s opening credits. So here we are.
This film is like Wuthering Heights in one very important respect – they both create compelling stories populated solely by terrible people. I found that impressive in Emily Bronte’s novel, and I find it impressive here. The characters are, by and large, awful. The woman, Abigail, who is presented most sympathetically at the start of the film turn out to be, in her words “capable of much unpleasantness.” As is everyone else. The two characters I found most sympathetic were Harley, the leader of the opposition party in Parliament and Queen Anne herself. Harley, because while he is just as manipulative as everyone else, he is the only one in the entire court who actually seems concerned about the people of England. And Queen Anne because I felt so sorry for her. She was the most piteous character of the film, despite her mercurial, demanding, and childish demeanor.
But, the genius of the film is that it shows that, due to the circumstances of court and power, or lack thereof, they have few other options than to be manipulative, conniving, horrid people, and thus makes the film compelling and the characters, if not sympathetic, at least understandable.
This movie is fundamentally about the tenuousness of power. Every character both has power either in theory or in practice, but is in some ways powerless. This movie is set in the early 1700s, so structurally, men hold all the power. In practice, however, because the Queen needs to sign off on things - divine right of the monarch and all that – the male heads of government’s power is restricted based on what kind of access they have to the queen. The most powerful person at the start of the film is Sarah, aka Duchess of Marlborough, who effectively rules the country “for” the queen. And yet her ability to rule rests solely on her status as the queen’s confident/BFF/lover. If that relationship sours, her power evaporates. And Queen Anne’s power is restricted based on what information she is given and how the people around her manage her, as well as her illnesses. Power is not a thing that anyone can take for granted. It must be seized, and then maintained, lest it disappear again. This tenuousness is the driving force behind nearly all of the characters’ actions, and why they are in many ways pushed to be terrible people and do awful things to others.
Story aside, this is one of the best constructed films I’ve ever seen. Everything is perfectly put together and everything has a point. The use of music, sound, and most interesting to me, silence. The way some scenes are shot through a fisheye lens. It is a costume drama, but the male costumes and make-up in particular make a point. There is one scene in Parliament where one party is wearing white wigs and the other wearing brown ones. And at that scene, I realized that that distinction via wigs had been present the entire film.
The acting, of course, is superb. As much as the film shows why the characters are horrible, all of that would fall flat without the incredible, nuanced acting of Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone. All three were nominated for Golden Globe awards and all three were 100 percent deserved.
This is a weird film. Not in a bad way but it’s definitely off-kilter, at least it felt that way to me. Of course, that is the point, in many ways, and it’s all done with a purpose. It’s taken me a full day to process it and figure out what I saw, and part of me thinks I need to see it again to actually get it, although I don’t know if I want to. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed the film exactly. It was funny but in a really dark way. More wry chuckles than belly laughs. But it is thought-provoking and incredibly well done. Many aspects of it are brilliant, and hope it gets lots of awards, because it absolutely deserves them. It is an incredible piece of craftsmanship. But at the end of the day, I admire the film more than I actually like it.
