It earned festival’s as well as critics’ prizes.
and it was the first film about queer female love that got some attention in the Oscars’ Best Picture category.
The Favourite lost the Best Picture prize, but Olivia Colman took home the Best Actress Oscar (though the predictions were for long-nominated and snubbed Glenn Close).
The film reunites Lanthimos’s Lobster stars Colman (Broadchurch, The Crown) and Rachel Weisz (Disobedience) as Queen Anne and her confidante or “favourite,” Sarah, the Duchess of Marlborough.
Anne and Sarah engage in wicked role-playing that borders on sadomasochism until Sarah’s cousin Abigail (Emma Stone) arrives at court. She is a femme who’s fallen from grace and will stop at nothing to regain her position.
Soon the rivalry between Sarah and Abigail is in full bloom and the women play at politics, real and sexual, to garner the queen’s attention.
Ultimately, The Favourite is sort of a romantic triangle of three vastly different femmes, the kind if which is seldom seen in cinema–mainstream or indie or art.
But even the men — in their wigs and ruffled sleeves, with their powdered faces adorned with moles as they stomp around in chunky heels arguing over issues of state while the women barely notice them — lend an overall air of camp.
End result is a delectable, multi-layered satire, which signals the audience that, despite the authentic and colorful costumes (by Carol’s Sandy Powell), The Favourite is not a typical period piece.
