Until about 2pm on this day I’m finally writing my thoughts about The Favourite, this film was my favorite of the season. This means it’s still a beloved film. It’s still a movie that has settled down deep inside of me as a great piece of art. And it’s still a film that puzzles and befuddles and makes anyone—okay, me— wrinkle her brow as she tries to make sense of it all.
Before I saw The Favourite, a friend told me her stepmother didn’t like the movie at all, calling it weird. (And yes, by almost all standards, it is.) Other than that, the only thing I knew was that it was a period piece. That was it. I didn’t even know what period, what country, what anything. Yet I loved it.
I fell for The Favourite in the opening scenes. Here, we have a carriage traveling the countryside, clearly long ago. (Turns out this was early 1700s.) Inside of the carriage, we see a man (I usually use the term gentleman in such descriptions, but I absolutely cannot here) who reaches into his pants to fondle himself so as to no doubt gratify himself, but more so, to startle the young woman across from him. I knew immediately: this is no ordinary period piece.
Then we see the outside. The carriage is approaching a large estate. The grounds are filled with fresh puddles. Nothing is beautifully manicured. We don’t see lush lawns of perfectly-trimmed greenery. Instead, there are puddles and mud and weeds. This too won my affection.
As the film moves along, these such things continue to delight me, even when in a disturbing way. Almost ever period piece is pretty. This one is not. This one, instead, has dirty costumes. Dark scenery. Practical jokes burning someone’s hands with lye. Difficult relationships. Night indoor party scenes are lit only with candles—literally, we see the hundreds of candles providing light. Yes, this is no ordinary period piece.
Where this non traditional aspect shines brightest, making me almost—weirdly—almost clap in delight, was the dance scene. Many of us have seen period movie after period movie of the near-requisite dance/ball scene. Then comes The Favourite. The dance scene here is more refreshing than a cold lemonade on a hot day. (Okay, so that’s a bit of a quiet shout-out to my movie companions who shared with me the homemade lemonade that provided refreshment during Black Panther.) My smile watching this, once I saw what happened, beamed. I think the movie completely won me over at that point (just in case it hadn’t from the opening scene of a nonmanicured lawn filled with puddles).
A bigger piece of this film is its story of these three women. These are three women, each with personal ties and desires for power that spell their fates. And this is what really makes it such a great piece. The movie tells the story of powerful women when we think women had no power. The movie tells the story of powerful women who connived and pushed and struggled. And they made their choices work.
Olivia Colman shatters any mold as Queen Anne. I watch clips of her role again and again, and I’m awed. And I revered the character she portrayed. The depth of grief that Queen Anne must have felt is something I cannot fathom, and I’ve had a lot fo grief in these last several years of mine. But hers—- hers exponentially eclipses anything. And Colman shows the bizarre nature such grief can lead to and how desperate for meaning, for purpose, for affection, for love—- and especially, for control— one might be based on such grief.
Rachael Wiesz is almost my choice for Best Supporting Actress. (Regina King in If Beale Street Could Talk overshadowed her for me.) The cunning, caring, plotting person she portrays—as she morphs continuously among all of those—astounds. (Emma Stone too got a nomination for Supporting, but she didn’t rise to Wiesz’s level for me, even as great as she was.)
Is this a biopic? Not really. Like other movies this season that are based in truth, while this one takes Queen Anne’s life and builds a story around it, most of the story is just that: built. But it’s done so magically, darkly, and brutally. These things all together make for a greatly entertaining and though-provoking film.
Why was/is this one of my top pics of the year? Reasons are multiple. As a period piece, this is my favorite movie that has dealt with an early 1700s time as realistically as I could ever imagine it. As a movie about powerful women, this film nails it. Well, it nails it in the sense of women hungry for power and who are so hungry so as to do anything. (Let us hope women of power are not this way and don’t need to go to these extremes.) More over for that point, these women so yearn for power, that their story consumes the tale: this isn’t about women as shadows of men who hang on their coattails to get there. This is a movie about power-hungry women. Period. They get there of their own devices. It’s complex. It’s dark. It’s layers. It’s difficult.
It’s gritty.
It’s really gritty.