By Rama Gaind.
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
Cast: Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, Nicholas Hoult.
A trio of faultless performances from Colman, Weisz and Stone drive this sharp period drama from Lanthimos (The Lobster, Dogtooth). That’s what you get when you cast three Academy Award-winners together.
It’s a black comedy of distinct ethical and political jealousies and conspiracy in 18th century England.
At a time when England was at war with France, a feeble Queen Anne of Great Britain (Coleman, 2019 Academy Award-winner for Best Actress in this role) occupies the throne. The volatile monarch suffers ill-health and is tended by her closest friend, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Weisz, 2015 Oscar winner for The Constant Gardener), who governs the country while tending to Anne and her explosive temper.
However, the symmetry of relationships changes after the arrival of the new servant Abigail Hill (Stone, winner of 2019 Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role). Sarah takes Abigail under her wing and the latter cunningly schemes to return to aristocratic roots, setting off a shocking rivalry to become the Queen’s favourite.
As the politics of war become quite time-consuming for Sarah, Abigail steps into the breach to fill in as the Queen’s companion. Their flourishing friendship gives her a chance to fulfill her ambition and no one or anything will stand in the way.
It’s easy to realise that Anne is naïve, needy and self-doubting. Her sulkiness is the result of pain and hurt that wedges her in a corner regardless of the fact she has a position of priviledge.
Sarah, who has considerable sway over Her Majesty, admirably reigns over the affairs of state. She is both Anne’s keeper and her servant. Such control exasperates politician Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer (Hoult).
This is not your ordinary historical drama, but one that is wickedly witty, entertaining and delivers a raucous good time.
The portrayals of these three women are multi-faceted and it’s not often that we get a chance to see that, along with the three of them getting ‘best acting’ recognition. What makes their performances astonishing are the subtleties in their characters which enables them to divide the poise evenly, exuding a chemistry that works well between them.
Special features on Blu-ray are the deleted scenes and unstitching the film’s costume drama.
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has given five Blu-ray copies of The Favourite to PS News to give away to the readers for correctly telling us who won the 2019 Oscar for Best Actress in The Favourite?
Entries should be sent to [email protected] by next Monday, 13 May 2019. Names of the winners will be announced in Frank Cassidy’s PS-sssst…! column next week.
