The Favourite (2018)

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Contemporary Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos is inclined to create worlds of his own, worlds in which the viewer feels like a complete stranger that gradually interacts with the environment, until a complete and fascinating immersion occurs. In his magnum opus Dogtooth (2009), Lanthimos invited us into a hermetic universe filled with its own codes and foreign to the outside world. In The Lobster (2015), he established socio-political and parameters and such about love, which fiercely challenge our reality.

The Favourite (2018), situates us at the beginning of the 18th century, in the palace of England’s Queen Anne (Olivia Colman). The members of the crown argue about the current situation: they are at war against France. Affected by gout and by the 17 abortions suffered during her life, Anne is a sick, fragile and irascible woman with a decadent lifestyle. Her nation remains overburdened with taxes and debts, a situation that worries Robert (Nicholas Hoult), one of the members of parliament. Anne finds a lover in Sarah (Rachel Weisz), wife of the Duke of Marlborough (Mark Gatiss), the leader of the battalion that is trying to consolidate victory in the war. Sarah’s young cousin Abigail (Emma Stone), goes to court in search of work after her family is ruined. Abigail longs for something more than being a housekeeper. She soon approaches Anne, who is in need of constant company and attention. Sarah, sensing the intentions of her perceptive cousin, seeks to shut down Abigail’s plans, but encounters a fierce opponent instead.

The film functions as a great chess game in which each character has very specific roles. There are graceful horses, lustful knights, great towers, bishops, and a war that seems to be a long way from the events of the palace. But, who is in charge of moving and protecting the queen? The two unscrupulous cousins. Being devoid of a male lead, the yearning for dominance subtly emanates from these female figures, willing to do anything to penetrate the realm of the queen’s private and intimate world. At first, the feud between Sarah and Abigail essentially seems to be a glorified drama of two vain and brat girls, but it soon turns into a complex, disturbing and refined dialogue. Their rivalry is encouraged by Anne, who, despite being the ruler of a great empire, is also a lonely and fragile figure, which goes from room to room with her swollen leg and intemperate presence. The unstable behavior of the three figures cannot only complicate and alter their desires, but also the path of war and the destiny of a nation. The three women form an erotic love triangle subjugated by jealousy and interests that each one hides in the abyss of her own minds. The cruel universe carries the protagonists through the traps of seduction, domination, and submission.

The universality of the situations turn the movie into a contemporary and instant delight. Lanthimos doesn’t faze with the vigor of his previous films, he opts for linearity and a targeted provocation in search for a wider audience. He places his vision in an exclusive circle dominated by impulses and deformed by power, leaving a mark that provokes, hurts and insinuates. “Power,” says Lanthimos, is “the most stark form of love”. So, in this fight for the favor of an indecisive monarch, every executioner becomes a victim, and vice versa. There is much more than greed and ambition in the struggle for Abigail’s rise and Lady Marlborough’s control of the political scene. It all converges into a brilliant drunkenness of meanness and villainy, a sentimental ode to the most mundane and earthly instincts.

Lanthimos presents a vibrant and pulsating feminist story, which questions the identity of women before their rights were included in any political or intellectual forum. It may seem that feminism evaporates at times, especially when attending to the cruel environments where women confront each other with Machiavellian schemes. But leaving aside the preconceived false theories about the wild female greed, it is worth noting that this mean and twisted superficiality hides a single and crucial goal: survival. While the power and social positions of men were taken for granted, women always fought to earn a specific status. For this reason, both Sarah and Abigail know that there’s only one place beside the queen. The merciless destruction of the adversary can only be reached by obscure paths. Even in those moments of delirious provocation and comic perversion, the actresses are able to maintain absolute coherence in the incarnation of their characters. The male characters are portrayed as ridiculous and banal, they wear makeup, blush, lipstick and heels. This characterization of male figures immediately enriches the whole feminist concept. Any piece of art that claims to do justice to women must portray them as human beings; show that there are all kinds of women in the same way that there are all kinds of men, and that female characters have the right to be terrible people.

by Octavio Carbajal González