In a year like 2018, in which the cinema has produced tons of rubbish, a film that I saw yesterday has appeared and refuted the saying that there is nothing new under the sun .
Presumably, historical dramas and biographies are always inflated and overburdened with surpluses that I have always tried to escape. It is incredibly rare for a film to be as accessible and honest as it is in the case with The Favourite. I remember two other similar movies that attracted me over the years and left a trace in my personal notebook, Orlando (1992) and Marie Antoinette (2006). They played with naturalism without exaggerating with unnecessary details in the historical context. Of course, along with The Favourite, they are all delving into another different surface, which we will be talking about in this review.
So let's focus on the film by George Lanthimos, who has so far become known for The Killing of the Sacred Deer (2017) and The Lobster (2015). The story is quite simple but multi-layered. Lesbian-queen with unpredictable temper (Olivia Colman) has a mistress Lady Sara (Rachel Wise) who actually manages the court and state affairs at moments when the queen is incapable of doing so. As we notice these moments are way too many because the queen is almost absent from being a head of state. Abigail (Emma Stone), Lady Sara's cousin, appears in the court trying to regain her lost title and reputation. She uses every single chance to win the Queen on her side.
The film is divided into eight parts, each of which contains a quotation from the subsequent dialogue.
There is something extremely introvert in the movie, despite the use of a fisheye lens and the incredible shooting angles. Olivia Colman gives Queen Anna maximum human dimensions. Here she stands in front of us without makeup, mask, grounded and exposed to godlessness. This is a woman without a desire for life, suffering from bulimia, gout, and the only thing that keeps her alive are the rabbits and her lover's company.
Abigail gradually pushes away her cousin from the favourite's throne , settling herself closely to Anna and then marries Lord Samuel Marsham, rewarding her with the needed honor and cementing her reputation.
The Favourite is a female apocalypse, a female kingdom and a female matrix in which men are only present as small figurines. This is a crazy but real story in which everyone is using each other. The genre is difficult to define because the pendulum sways between black comedy, love story, historical drama, and a thriller game of cat and mouse. All these segments are totally deconstructed and sent to you, so that you can then assemble them personally in your own head. That's why I like such films because there are no solutions here, but there is an eccentric, inspirational and dimensional vision in a tragicomedy. Tragicomedy is a genre that stretches the action from all possible angles of psychology, and gives the context a certainty and credibility. Each character at one time is duplicitous, but faithful, manipulative, but also trusting. Visual aesthetics extracts Baroque and renders it on the screen, inhabiting it with animalistic and raw characters. The dialogue is brutal. C.nt and f.ck are widely used and this is only a plus for the film, because the human history is shown without idealisation and romanticising.
The incredible soundtrack with lots of Bach and Handel, and as well modern experimental compositions of Messiaen and Ferrari, filters and dozes the splendour and glamour, and that's what, of course, every real movie needs.
Costumes, and oh, surprise but! the incredibly English accent of Emma Stone (who is from Massachusetts) is raising the bar high (even) over Hollywood level, and that (for sure) will be noticed and generously rewarded by the Academy.
I have read a lot of criticism of how the film is missing an end. Nothing like that!No one needs an end, only modestly shaped souls, which necessarily require an explanation of a historical fiction so that they can fall asleep quietly. In this line of thoughts, the film is not at all calm and quiet and will remain forever in you. Precisely with this open end.
Presumably, historical dramas and biographies are always inflated and overburdened with surpluses that I have always tried to escape. It is incredibly rare for a film to be as accessible and honest as it is in the case with The Favourite. I remember two other similar movies that attracted me over the years and left a trace in my personal notebook, Orlando (1992) and Marie Antoinette (2006). They played with naturalism without exaggerating with unnecessary details in the historical context. Of course, along with The Favourite, they are all delving into another different surface, which we will be talking about in this review.
So let's focus on the film by George Lanthimos, who has so far become known for The Killing of the Sacred Deer (2017) and The Lobster (2015). The story is quite simple but multi-layered. Lesbian-queen with unpredictable temper (Olivia Colman) has a mistress Lady Sara (Rachel Wise) who actually manages the court and state affairs at moments when the queen is incapable of doing so. As we notice these moments are way too many because the queen is almost absent from being a head of state. Abigail (Emma Stone), Lady Sara's cousin, appears in the court trying to regain her lost title and reputation. She uses every single chance to win the Queen on her side.
The film is divided into eight parts, each of which contains a quotation from the subsequent dialogue.
There is something extremely introvert in the movie, despite the use of a fisheye lens and the incredible shooting angles. Olivia Colman gives Queen Anna maximum human dimensions. Here she stands in front of us without makeup, mask, grounded and exposed to godlessness. This is a woman without a desire for life, suffering from bulimia, gout, and the only thing that keeps her alive are the rabbits and her lover's company.
Abigail gradually pushes away her cousin from the favourite's throne , settling herself closely to Anna and then marries Lord Samuel Marsham, rewarding her with the needed honor and cementing her reputation.
The Favourite is a female apocalypse, a female kingdom and a female matrix in which men are only present as small figurines. This is a crazy but real story in which everyone is using each other. The genre is difficult to define because the pendulum sways between black comedy, love story, historical drama, and a thriller game of cat and mouse. All these segments are totally deconstructed and sent to you, so that you can then assemble them personally in your own head. That's why I like such films because there are no solutions here, but there is an eccentric, inspirational and dimensional vision in a tragicomedy. Tragicomedy is a genre that stretches the action from all possible angles of psychology, and gives the context a certainty and credibility. Each character at one time is duplicitous, but faithful, manipulative, but also trusting. Visual aesthetics extracts Baroque and renders it on the screen, inhabiting it with animalistic and raw characters. The dialogue is brutal. C.nt and f.ck are widely used and this is only a plus for the film, because the human history is shown without idealisation and romanticising.
The incredible soundtrack with lots of Bach and Handel, and as well modern experimental compositions of Messiaen and Ferrari, filters and dozes the splendour and glamour, and that's what, of course, every real movie needs.
Costumes, and oh, surprise but! the incredibly English accent of Emma Stone (who is from Massachusetts) is raising the bar high (even) over Hollywood level, and that (for sure) will be noticed and generously rewarded by the Academy.
I have read a lot of criticism of how the film is missing an end. Nothing like that!No one needs an end, only modestly shaped souls, which necessarily require an explanation of a historical fiction so that they can fall asleep quietly. In this line of thoughts, the film is not at all calm and quiet and will remain forever in you. Precisely with this open end.