The Favourite (2018)

"My life is like a maze I continually think I have gotten out of, only to find another corner right in front of me." ... it got me at this one ;) despite the context... let's say a bit "strange" of associating this line in the movie :)) No spoilers - just that "The Favourite" is not really a drama in the strict sense, contrary of what looks like.

Queen Anne ruled ove the United Kingdom sometime at the beginning of the 1700s. The exact date is less relevant. More relevant are the intrigues, the political clashes, the war seen more or less as a board game, etc., which either 100 years before or 100 after (or more..) probably won't show much difference. What we have in the movie is an episode with lots of satire in it set in this environment, where a duchess and her less noble cousin end up fighting for the status of a "favourite" at the court of a queen plagued with diseases, anger and solitude. And contrary to the relaxed tone it starts from, this conflict evolves towards hardly predictable Machiavellian proportions.

Let's take a slight detour to the more technical side, otherwise I'll lose some ideas, and I'll move back to the story in the end. We have some camera angles resulting in a very interesting cinematography, and a score based on a classic line, but bringing a series of intermezzos simple but very effective, mostly in underlining the tensed moments. The three actresses in the main parts - Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, and especially Emma Stone, are brilliant in their acting. I've been recommended at some point to watch "The Lobster" directed by the same Yorgos Lanthimos, but I got scared by the perspective of an acute depression when I saw a tagline saying something like "single people obliged to find a romantic partner in forty-five days or are transformed into beasts", so I skipped that. I don't know what this guy did there, but what we have here looks like a lighter "royalized" and "anglicized" Tarantino :) I'm exaggerating a bit, but the movie is structured in the same episodic style, in which every segment comes with a "punch" that changes a bit your perspective over the story.

And coming back to that... I have the unfortunate habit (due to losing time + filling my head with cu useless stuff) to do sometimes a "fact check" when a I watch a movie based on real stuff. And here you get a bit intrigued by the evolution of a character, who you wouldn't believe at scene two how far could get. What you see though in "The Favourite" seems way more romanticized compared to the historical truth. Including the not so orthodox relationship between the three main characters that gets a lot of attention in the movie, about which there doesn't seem to be any solid proof. But in the end, it doesn't write either anywhere that William Wallace cried "Freedooooom!" before the axe fell down, or that he had any affair with the future queen of England. But how would've been "Braveheart" without these? :) Honestly... I'd even say that I regret that "The Favourite" has the ending it does, which might leave you a bit disappointed waiting for a more... balanced closure of the "war". But going so far to re-write who won the fight probably won't work... or?... :P just referenced Tarantino, "Inglorious Basterds" anyone?...

Rating: 4 out of 5