The Favourite 2018
The previews made this movie seem funny and intriguing and then it started getting some very good reviews, finishing third on Metacritic’s compilation of Top 10 lists, so I definitely wanted to see it, but it took a while. It is mostly a period piece of royal palace intrigue set during the reign of Queen Anne around 1710. What makes this more modern is the role played by sexual relationships between Anne and her female assistants, often kind of raunchy, but also with a lot of humor. The movie is primarily from the point of view of Emma Stone’s character from a disgraced noble family as she tries to claw her way back to a lifestyle of comfort. She is taken under the wing of Rachel Weisz, who is Queen Anne’s closest personal aide, but she has greater ambition. All three actresses do a great job with their roles and the story is fun to watch, even though I was not at all familiar with Queen Anne or the politics of that time period. There are some great costumes and sets and the plot moves along fairly well before kind of fizzling out at the very end. It’s a well-made movie, more about these characters than the politics, but the politics are handled pretty well and seem to be accurate.
Written: 10 Feb 2019
Owned on: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital