The Favourite (2018)
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
England, early 18th century. The close relationship between Queen Anne and Sarah Churchill is threatened by the arrival of Sarah's cousin, Abigail Hill, resulting in a bitter rivalry between the two cousins to be the Queen's favourite.
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19 films that influenced The Favourite
What critics say influenced The Favourite
There's a comic perversity that recalls "Barry Lyndon" but it's not just the dramatics, it's the style as well; the wide lens-ed shots, the natural lighting and the obsessively delivered period details Kubrick was known for are all there.
The cinematography by Robbie Ryan beautifully emulates the look of classics like “Barry Lyndon,” bathing moments in Gothic candlelight or tracking through green forests where lovers slap and play.
Set in the court of Queen Anne during the early 1700s, with jaunty dollops of classical music playing in ironic counterpart to all the low-minded chicanery, the movie is “Barry Lyndon” meets “Dangerous Liaisons” meets “All About Eve,” with blood flourishes lifted from Peter Greenaway.
Though its stunning, candlelit interiors and setting invite comparisons to “Barry Lyndon,” “The Favourite” is more akin to a film like “Jackie Brown” for the way it represents both an expansion of and slight departure from its director’s established sensibility.
The Favourite, a combination of All About Eve and Barry Lyndon, begins in the court of Queen Anne ( Olivia Colman ).
Unlike the similarly set Barry Lyndon or Dangerous Liaisons, which both had strong female characters toppled by the whims of strutting cocks, Lanthimos’s latest makes the men extraneous, building a potent hothouse atmosphere that swirls with secret desires.
Her All About Eve-esque relationship with Emma Stone’s Abigail is at the crux of The Favourite.
Often satirical, “The Favourite” also grasps the complexity of circumstantial, patriarchy-defined enmity among females, obliquely bringing to mind everything from “ The Women ” and “ All About Eve ,” to “ Mean Girls ” and " The Handmaiden ."
Hell, a similar plot transpired in the Oscar-winning drama, All About Eve!
Set in the court of Queen Anne during the early 1700s, with jaunty dollops of classical music playing in ironic counterpart to all the low-minded chicanery, the movie is “Barry Lyndon” meets “Dangerous Liaisons” meets “All About Eve,” with blood flourishes lifted from Peter Greenaway.
The Favourite, a combination of All About Eve and Barry Lyndon, begins in the court of Queen Anne ( Olivia Colman ).
The arrival of Abigail is when this movie takes an All About Eve turn.
The Favourite often puts you in mind of Peter Greenaway's equally irreverent and raunchy The Draughtsman's Contract.
Lanthimos’ fussily composed shots and smothering aesthetic excess sometimes bring to mind the English director Peter Greenaway, whose 1982 murder mystery, The Draughtsman’s Contract , also took place in a world of merciless aristocrats and severely trimmed hedge mazes.
It reminded me of when another Classic Era director, Elia Kazan, went all hip with The Arrangement (1969), after Euro-influenced New Hollywood films like Bonnie and Clyde began to change the American moviescape.
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The film also recalls Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette in its sly anachronistic flourishes; a particular comic highlight is a staid formal dance that evolves into something more closely resembling a voguing contest.
The last frock opera to break the mold to this degree was Sofia Coppola’s underrated Marie Antoinette.
Often satirical, “The Favourite” also grasps the complexity of circumstantial, patriarchy-defined enmity among females, obliquely bringing to mind everything from “ The Women ” and “ All About Eve ,” to “ Mean Girls ” and " The Handmaiden ."
A film with a concept you didn’t know you needed, The Favourite is what happens when Mean Girls is crossed with 18th century English aristocracy.
‘Young innocent finds herself cruelly used by the great and grand’ is not an unfamiliar story (see also: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Mean Girls).
An apt comparison of female power dynamics might very well be the high school satire Mean Girls, The Favorite being an 18th…
Think Mean Girls written by Jonathan Swift.
Director Yorgos Lanthimos’ wild take on the stuffy period piece is an 18th-century hoot that marries “Mean Girls”-level insults and slapstick humor: Before the movie really even gets going, Emma Stone face-plants into mud after being thrown out of a carriage – and that's far down the list of her most bonkers situations.
But remember another costume piece, Tony Richardson’s “Tom Jones,” which was deemed equally lusty and risky when it came out, in 1963, yet grew forced and tarnished with the years.
Even if this unique absurdist has not exactly been your cup of tea previously, he might finally win you over with this deliciously “ Dangerous Liaisons ”-esque and thoroughly female-driven period film, co-written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara .
Set in the court of Queen Anne during the early 1700s, with jaunty dollops of classical music playing in ironic counterpart to all the low-minded chicanery, the movie is “Barry Lyndon” meets “Dangerous Liaisons” meets “All About Eve,” with blood flourishes lifted from Peter Greenaway.
Unlike the similarly set Barry Lyndon or Dangerous Liaisons, which both had strong female characters toppled by the whims of strutting cocks, Lanthimos’s latest makes the men extraneous, building a potent hothouse atmosphere that swirls with secret desires.
Cleverly written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, The Favourite is a kind of sapphic Dangerous Liaisons, without all the melodrama.
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Imagine if Audrey Hepburn were introduced in Roman Holiday with someone jerking off to her and then her falling into a pile of shit.
Though its stunning, candlelit interiors and setting invite comparisons to “Barry Lyndon,” “The Favourite” is more akin to a film like “Jackie Brown” for the way it represents both an expansion of and slight departure from its director’s established sensibility.