On the way to Queen Anne's farm, the new servant Abigail (Emma Stone) ends up in the dirt. Pushed out of the carriage, right into the legacy of the people, who craps in front of the palace for political reasons.
So she appears there, in front of her cousin Sarah (Rachel Weisz), the monarch's closest confidant, and the Prime Minister: drawn from her background, fluttered by flies. "Friends of yours?", The cousin asks pointedly, and it is already clear that the sewer ends not at the gates of the palace and Abigail has landed directly in the next shit.
At the English court, at the beginning of the 18th century, there is a climate of minor cruelty. The gout-plagued queen (Olivia Colman, "Broadchurch") seldom appears, politics leaves her to a bunch of dorks: in the young two-party system, there are Whigs and Tories, one for another war with France, and dark wigs that are others against it and have white wigs on. At the court, they try their hand at open debates or hidden intrigues, throwing themselves about naked with pomegranates. Everybody flies in the shit here. And in between there are pineapples and rumors of uprisings of the war-weary people.
After the premiere in Venice "The Favorite" was often celebrated as the most accessible film by arthouse favorite Yorgos Lanthimos ("The Lobster"). This could be because Lanthimos has not filmed its own fabric for the first time, but has taken as a basis a script by Deborah Davis, on which the debutante worked for over 20 years. However, Lanthimos and Tony McNamara have given it their typical cold, because in "The Favorite" there is no identification offer.
"Now fuck me!"
The depressive, insecure, and unruly Queen, whose life seems to be structured exclusively by gout and overreaching attacks, managing prime minister Sarah, who handles everything from cream consumption in the kitchen to the most recent maneuver on the battlefield, and the kloak-resistant Abigail who make their way from the very bottom to the Queen's bed - they are all at the mercy of Robbie Ryan's camera. This may not feel like a human eye with its extreme wide-angle shots and Reißschwenks, but permanently creates the need for orientation.
"The Favorite - Intrigue and Insanity"
UK 2018
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Book: Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara
With: Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone
Production: Element Pictures, Scarlet Films, Film4, Waypoint Entertainment
Distribution: 20th Century Fox
Length: 119 minutes
FSK: from 12 years
Cinema release: January 24, 2019
That so far all reviews have fallen on the spectacle of Stone, Weisz and Colman (the latter has good prospects after winning the Golden Globe to follow the other two as an Oscar winner), is understandable. How they manage not to give these sympathetic figures a human face for a moment is admirable.
The fact that Queen Anne had lesbian relationships with Sarah Churchill and Abigail Masham is not proven, but remains in the not too pronounced historico-scientific interest in the "good queen" an ever-continuing rumor. The film approaches this - again choreographed as a power game - desire from its non-human perspective: bottom view, partial shade, distorted faces, curved body, clear language: "Now fuck me!" Anne orders her friend, while the new servant is the looks very closely.
Cooler glance at the wickedness
In the last shot the perfidy reaches its peak: shots of the three women in different states of arousal and humiliation are superimposed; the transitions are literally flowing. Add to that a visual gimmick, which Lanthimos has considered for the childlessness of the queen - finished is a rarely horrible picture of lesbian desire.
In the video: The trailer for "The Favorite - Intrigue and lunacy"
20th Century Fox
What Lanthimos is actually interested in this story, is not very clear. The virtuosity of the dialogue, the drastic exemptions from the corset of the historical film, the interest in the power of evil women, the hard cuts between the inexplicable sceneries and the cool outlook on the wickedness of the world provide a two-hour amusement.
In the end, you might feel like the Queen, who runs a race between lobsters in her room and then eats them: We, too, are reduced to the desire to consume the shifts in power between three characters for a while - and then quickly gain sight of this digest.