OVP: The Favourite (2018)

Film: The Favourite (2018)
Stars: Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, Nicholas Hoult, Joe Alwyn
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Oscar History: 10 nominations/1 win (Best Picture, Director, Actress-Olivia Colman*, Supporting Actress-Rachel Weisz, Supporting Actress-Emma Stone, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Production Design, Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

I have so far struggled when it comes to the films of Yorgos Lanthimos.  Dogtooth I hated with a visceral passion even if I recognized the artistry, while The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer I quite liked, but felt they were going to be hard for me to love.  I'm not incapable of loving cold cinema (it's kind of what I'm known for loving, to be honest), but these are hard sits, featuring the worst of humanity, and they have characters that make you appreciate the filmmaking and the acting, but it's difficult for me to feel "that's brilliant" so much as to say "that's brilliant."  This opinion, however, totally changed with my recent viewing of The Favourite.  The surprise Best Actress winner which was cited for ten Oscars (you'll notice over the next two weeks a concerted effort from me to get as many of the 2018 Oscar nominees out as possible, a promise I've made a few times but will actually back this time around as I'm feeling weirdly grounded after a lot of soul-searching this past weekend) is a riot, a wonderfully-acted and scripted feast for anyone who loves the movies, and anchored by enough depth from Colman, Stone, and Weisz to be Lanthimos's best film, and the first one I can certainly say I love without qualification.

(Spoilers Ahead, Though, You Know, It's History) The film's central focus is on a love triangle between Queen Anne (Colman) and two of her trusted aides-longtime friend Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough (Weisz) and her cousin Abigail Hill (Stone), who is down-on-her-luck after her father literally bet her in a game of cards.  Initially Abigail is forced to do the work of a maid, and is hazed for it, but a chance encounter with the queen where she can ease the monarch's pain from gout allows her to become one of her ladies in waiting, and sets off a gigantic feud between Abigail and Sarah, particularly after Abigail finds out about the sexual relationship between the Queen and Sarah.  Abigail starts her own sexual relationship with the Queen, causing a further divide, and eventually gains her trust after poisoning Sarah and nearly killing her.  The film ends with Sarah banished from the kingdom, with Abigail showing her true colors as duplicitous while Sarah shows that she actually loved the Queen, and the Queen realizing her folly but knowing its too late.  In pure Lanthimos fashion, the film ends with Anne forcing Abigail to massage her legs, humiliating her and reminding her that all of her power is coming from the Queen & can be snatched away at any moment, but also underlining that the Queen has given up the thing that had alluded her her whole life-love.

The film sums itself up quite neatly in part because the base plot is relatively straight-forward.  There's not a lot of invention or world-building like in previous Lanthimos creations, where figuring out how the world will normalize is a critical component of the story's end game.  This actually happened, well a less-fictionalized version of it certainly happened, and as a result we are positioned in reality.

Weirdly this reality actually helps Lanthimos's direction, as the departures are clearer and stronger, in my opinion, than even something as inventive as The Lobster.  It's not often (it's, in fact, never) where I prefer real life to an original story, but I sometimes feel that Lanthimos as a writer favors shocking the audience more than he does creating a compelling finish to his story, and as a result we get a really strong ending here, as well as a showcase for the wit of the dialogue rather than always taking the plot in endless directions.

Because the script itself is the greatest star here.  Weisz, Stone, and Colman are all the best they've ever been (no hyperbole-I mean that, and I've loved them all before), but they are aided by a truly splendid script filled with clever one-liners and turns-of-phrase.  Weisz gets the best lines (my personal favorite is Stone/Weisz's: "How good to see you've returned from..." "Hell-I'm sure you shall pass through it one day."), but everyone's on fire here with dialogue that envies film classics like All About Eve.  After such a pleasurable, marvelous picture I'm intrigued to see where Lanthimos goes with his career-will the creative freedom such a critical hit affords him doom him, or is The Favourite the type of film he's wanted to make all along?  We shall see, but know I'll be there opening weekend after this movie.