Skip to main content

The Favourite


The Favourite is a film set in the reign of Queen Anne of Great Britain sometime around the start of the 18th Century. It's directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, the Greek director of Dogtooth and The Lobster, among others, and stars Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone and Nicholas Hoult. All of these talented bastards hit the back of the net but the writers - Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara - and the cinematographer - Robbie Ryan - are the unsung water-carriers here. The script is crackling, especially the dialogue between Stone's Abigail and Hoult's Harley, a prime example of which below:
Favour is a breeze that shifts direction all the time. Then in a instant you're back sleeping with a bunch of scabrous whores wondering whose finger's in your arse.
But it's not only the dialogue that scores. The pacing of the scenes, unlike many period dramas, snaps along and the action travels nicely around the mansion, making the location a character in itself (Abigail starts out scarred with lye in the scullery, moves to a spartan room of her own and finally to quarters at court). Oh, and there are lashings of the word cunt throughout. Perfectly used each time.


The film looks special too. According to a story on Indiewire, Ryan says they used not only 10mm lenses but also 6mm ones, which noticeably distorted the shots into proper fish-eye, making some scenes feel like a Dandy Warhols music video. And I say that with the best of intentions. This from said interview:
"There's an absurdist thing about that lens that it's kind of almost comical, but it's fantastical as well - it's not totally out of place in the film, which you would never imagine," said Ryan.
The lighting is also pretty amazing, mostly for the fact that they went all Dogme 95 on it and used only natural light. Apparently, the Kodak film 'rounds out the highlights in blown out windows'. There are some scenes which are only candle-lit and this really adds to the grandeur of the mansion location (Hatfield House, Hertfordshire & Hampton Court, Richmond). The music might be the only bum note for me in this film. It's mostly fine but the discordant style went on too long in certain scenes. But that's a minor quibble in a film as fine as this one.


Watching The Favourite (and immediately following it) I was impressed with the style, the humour, the characters but a week or so later I'm thinking more about the queen herself and the intricacies of her personality. The other characters had motivation, certain ambitions, but what was Anne's drive? It's pretty clear that it's all returning to the rabbits. Having to be a leader without necessarily wanting the gig (during wartime no less), losing 17 (!) children, wondering who is a friend and who is a scheming mountebank - all this informs Olivia Colman's performance. I was saying to Merv that I thought Colman wasn't really the lead in this, that it's an equal three-hander but I now think that she's the pivot of the film, regardless of screen time. All the heavy themes - favouritism, loss, desperation, drawing strength from unknown places - are handled by Anne, while the fun stuff is given to Sarah, Abigail, Harley and Godolphin. Duck racing anyone?

See also:

 For a thematic equivalent have a look at Joseph L. Mankiewicz's All About Eve (1950) and for more natural light use, check out the first Dogme film, Festen (1998), directed by Thomas Vinterberg.

SPOILERS IN POD!!

Listen to "The Favourite" on Spreaker.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ainbo: Amazon Princess

A young Amazonian girl bounding around on a tree like Mowgli in The Jungle Book opens this Peruvian/Dutch/German co-production. We soon discover that this is the Ainbo of the title, and that her best friend, Zumi, is about to be crowned leader of their tribe. A relatively quick whip- round of characters introduces us to the two leads; a smarmy village thug called Atok; Zumi’s father and current tribal chief, Huarinka; Ainbo’s foster mother, Chuni; as well as two ‘loopy’ spirit guides, Dillo and Vaca (a bespectacled armadillo and a clumsy tapir). The environmental theme is also introduced early on, in the form of dying fish and disease in the village, attributed to a curse but, as we find out later, the result of something more real, and more troubling. Ainbo is convinced by her spirit guides to embark on a trek to find a magical root that will save the village. On her journey she must deal with various perils, ranging from a pursuing Atok, and a gigantic sloth in his volcano home, t...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Quiet Girl

This is a great film, especially in the way that it manages to create something interesting out of a reasonably mundane synopsis. A young girl is sent away to a relative's house for the summer where she is treated better than at home. Sounds like it could have a bit of Rohmer-style youthful awakenings? Or maybe some gritty Loach-ian societal comment? Even perhaps a revenge tinged 'fear the youth' theme? Well, it's none of the above, and more power to its style. The Quiet Girl herself (Cáit) is a newcomer, Catherine Clinch, and she was apparently found via an Irish language school call out. She's incredible - meek, direct, no airs nor graces whatsoever, with a clear-eyed awkwardness. She's almost like a little female Bowie in The Quiet Girl Who Fell to Earth (no, not a film but I thought I'd italicise anyway). There are orbiting performances that complement her perfectly. Carrie Crowley and Andrew Bennet play Eibhlín and Seán Cinnsealach, the couple who tak...
2 comments
Read more

Arco (Me) (Kid)

This is the first feature length film from French writer/director Ugo Bienvenu. It tells the story of futuristic kid, Arco, voiced by Juliano Crue Valdi in the English dub, and Oscar Tresanini in the French original - here I'll explain that I saw the preview of this with the English voice cast, so I'll mention them from now, unless I spy a notable Frenchy. Anyway, Arco is too young to fly to the past like his family do, but like any young ding-a-ling, he decides to chance his arm, and ends up in 2075. This is a more recognisable future for us than Arco's time, as we see climate change writ large on society. In this time-zone, Arco meets Iris (Margot Ringard Oldra) and her domestic robot, Mikki (voiced by a strange combination of Iris's parents, Natalie Portman and Mark Ruffalo). Iris wants to help Arco return to his time, but they're thwarted by a missing jewel that he needs in order to travel, as well as a trio of bumbling goons (Will Ferrell, Andy Samberg and Flea...
Post a Comment
Read more

Two Prosecutors

This Stalinist 'thriller' sets out its stall early, with a snowy prison yard holding our attention (or not) for a good few minutes. Prisoners are herded in, most very old and on the verge of pegging it. One such geezer is tasked with burning hundreds of letters to Josef himself, pleading with him to hear their case. The old guy saves a letter written in blood and so begins the story. The note is from an ex-academic, party member and proud Bolshevik, asking to see someone from the prosecutors office. Enter Kornev (Alexander Kuznetsov), newly appointed and eager. His meeting with the ancient political prisoner, Stepniak (Alexsandr Filippenko) opens his eyes to the creeping dread of the times. Kornev makes the trek to Moscow to see the Procurator General (Anatoliy Beliy) to make his case against NKVD corruption brough to his attention by Stepniak. It's not an easy mission. The bureaucracy and interminable fucking waiting throughout the first two acts of the film would make Kaf...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Voice of Hind Rajab

The Voice of Hind Rajab is a very confronting film that uses real emergency recordings to tell the story of Hind Rajab, a 6 year old Palestinian girl trapped under siege in northern Gaza in early 2024. Tunisian writer/director Kaouther Ben Hania apparently paused work on another film when she heard the audio of the calls between Hind and the Palestine Red Crescent Society in order to get this film made. And it's a timely reminder of the crimes of this current Israeli government. The film starts in the offices of the Red Crescent, a West Bank based rescue agency, when Omar (Motaz Malhees) gets a call from a man in Germany explaining that his family are stuck in a car that's been attacked. Omar contacts a young woman in the car but is cut off by the sounds of gunfire. When the call is reconnected, it's soon discovered that the only person still alive in the car is a 6 year old girl, Hind. The sole way to save her is to coordinate with the Israeli army, via the Red Cross to a...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Goya Murders

The machinations of the serial killer have long been fertile ground for filmmakers but the quality of the final product can vary greatly. For every Zodiac or Se7en there’s one like this. The Goya Murders (or El Asesino de los Caprichos ) starts with a reasonably sound premise – a killer is poisoning his (usually well off) victims and recreating scenes from Goya prints as deathly exhibits. Imagine the murders scenes in Se7en but with less gore and more artistry. Investigating these are Madrid detectives, Carmen Cobos and Eva González, played by Maribal Verdú and Aura Garrido, and though the actors are fine, they have the writing to overcome. Their characters are broadly painted, there’s not a lot of light and shade here. Carmen immediately takes against her younger partner for no apparent reason. Eva is a fun-loving, karaoke singing, happy mother-of-two, while Carmen drinks from a hip flask and drives erratically. At one point a fellow officer tells Carmen that her ‘bad cop’ routine ...
Post a Comment
Read more

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

I'm really getting into the 28UoTLCU (28 'Unit of Time' Later Cinematic Universe). This edition is directed by Nia DaCosta, and she picks up the reins from Danny Boyle and slots right into the landscape. The biggest takeaway from The Bone Temple is that Father Figure transference is rife, throughout both of these '28 Years' films, actually. If we choose the obvious link, Spike (Alfie Williams) is passed from parents, Isla (Jodie Comer) and Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) in the first film, onto two polar opposites, Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) and Jimmy Crystal (Jack O'Connell) in this one, and presumably to a certain returnee in the third installment.  But there are also other relationships in the film(s) that explore the nature of dependency, and we have to assume writer Alex Garland, DaCosta, and godfather Boyle, have other, real-world settings in mind, not purely in the zombie genre. This manifests in the rapprochement of Dr. Kelson towards the 'infected', s...
Post a Comment
Read more

We Bury the Dead

I went along to Luna Outdoor last Friday to see a preview of local lad, Zac Hilditch's Albany shot, Tassie set zombie drama, We Bury the Dead . The premise goes that the US government has accidentally detonated an experimental pulse weapon close to the east coast of Tasmania, killing more than 500,000 people. A side note to this disaster is that some of the dead are rebooting. Daisy Ridley plays Ava, an American physical therapist looking for her husband, who was in Tassie on a work retreat. She volunteers to be part of a body retrieval unit but is told she must not leave Hobart. She meets Clay (Brenton Thwaites) and they manage to cadge a motorbike and hit the road south. On the way, among the rebooted, they run into soldier Riley (Mark Coles Smith), who has his own reasons for being out of the capital. In a Q&A after the film with The Curb's Andrew F. Peirce, Hilditch mentioned that the film started out as a pure grief drama, and zombies were added to the script later. Th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mandibles

Mandibles is the latest film from French musician turned filmmaker, Quentin Dupieux (aka Mr. Oizo). It’s an odd film, veering between lovably surreal farce and nihilistic idiocy. The premise has our protagonists, Manu (Grégoire Ludig) and Jean-Gab (David Marsais), stumbling upon a grotesquely large fly in the boot of a car they’ve stolen. This scuppers the completion of a possibly dodgy job they’re on but these two will not be disheartened. Jean-Gab suggests training the huge fly, which he names Dominique, and putting it to work for them as a kind of thief drone – one that “doesn’t need batteries”. The action takes place in a less than idyllic South of France where Manu and Jean-Gab lurch almost involuntarily from one ludicrous situation to another, all the while giving each other a nerdy hand-shake called ‘The Toro’. After some initial criminal tomfoolery, Manu is mistaken for someone else and invited to a country villa by some young women. Offer accepted, they take advantage of th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nope

Jordan Peele really doesn't flinch from a stoush. His first film, Get Out , took an excoriating swipe at racism and white privilege in the US. His second film, Us , delved into class divides and human rights. His latest film, Nope , takes aim at man's subjugation of nature, primarily for profit. The marketing of this film suggests a creepy, sci-fi alien invasion film, and while this is all accurate, there's more going on here too. Daniel Kaluuya, returning for a second Peele film (after Get Out ), plays OJ Haywood, a trainer of horses that appear in films or TV. His father, Otis senior (Keith David), is killed early doors in a freak accident....or is it? Well, no obviously, it isn't, but life moves on for 6 months before more manure flies. OJ is joined by his sister, Emerald (Keke Palmer), as the Haywood Hollywood Horses business, bereft of the old man's guidance and experience perhaps, begins to flounder. OJ has been selling some of the horses to Steven Yuen's ...
Post a Comment
Read more