‘The Favourite’ Is A Sublime Send-Up Of Royal Power Games [NYFF]
By Marshall Shaffer/Sept. 29, 2018 11:00 am EST
Perhaps unintentionally given the years-long journey from script to screen, the latest filmic oddity from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos refracts the palace intrigue so integral to today’s politics through a funhouse mirror in 18th century England. We’ve seen countless movies recently that show how the political is personal. The Favourite takes it one step further, showing how the political is interpersonal. Lanthimos revels in the perverse power dynamics across gender and social class that determine the fate of a country. (With some liberties taken, of course, but no one is seeing this for a history lesson.)
What sets The Favourite apart from similar tales of royal bickering, though, is Lanthimos’ willingness to depict the blood sport of politics without engaging in it himself. The rivalry that develops between Duchess Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) and her social climbing cousin, Baroness Abigail Marsham (Emma Stone), provides nonstop delight as they compete for the pole position among Queen Anne’s (Olivia Colman) closest confidants. But the central thrust of the film is not merely to see how far down the bottom of their depravity lies. In doing so, Lanthimos would then just be reinforcing the necessity of the petty gamesmanship.
Lanthimos brings a clinical eye to these dynamics, treating them not as inevitable but deeply abnormal. In his prior works, particularly those made in his native Greece, the filmmaker abstracts the people on screen to the point that their actions seem detached from any recognizable instincts and impulses. His actors do not play characters so much as they play humans altogether, as if they are aliens in a mortal skin who still view it as slightly foreign. That approach does not get as much play in The Favourite, where he directs his trio of actresses towards exaggerated extremes that pump steroids into the already heightened stakes.
The trademark Lanthimos absurdity comes primarily from he and cinematographer Robbie Ryan’s shot of choice – the wide shot filmed through a fish-eye lens. This unconventional look frequently reminds viewers of just how warped the reality is before their eyes. Even whilst relegating much of the worldview that made him an international sensation to the aesthetic, The Favourite still feels like a Yorgos Lanthimos movie through and through.
Pivoting away from some of the overt absurdism on a story level comes in especially handy when it comes time to drive home the emotional stakes of the film. While Lanthimos gets in plenty of laughs at the expense of all who participate in this treacherous game, be it through a delicious verbal quip or a mischievous facial expression, he’s never just observing the game for its own sake. Plenty of films involving cutthroat women revel in pitting them against each other, but The Favourite never devolves into a catfight where one woman comes out on top and the other one is vanquished. In a dark, emotional turn loaded with the psychological heft of an Ingmar Bergman drama, Lanthimos demonstrates how they all lose just by participating.
The film’s conclusions land with such a gut-wrenching punch because they do not feel like an abrupt pivot or a tacked-on bit of moralizing from screenwriters Tony McNamara and Deborah Davis. It works to devastating effect thanks to Lanthimos’ insistence on raw, unvarnished emotion from his cast. Baroque in style though their performances may be, all the actors never lose sight of the insecurity and desperation driving their characters.
/Film rating: 10 out of 10
