Member review

The Favourite is the newest film by one of the weirdest and most individual directors out there, Yorgus Lanthimos (The Lobster, The Killing Of A Sacred Deer, Dogtooth) and it stars Olivia Coleman (The Lobster, Hot Fuzz, The Night Manager), Rachel Weisz (The Mummy, My Cousin Rachel, The Lobster) and Emma Stone (La La Land, Easy A, Superbad).

The Favourite is all about two right hand girls of Queen Anne trying to win her over to be, The Favourite. Much like Lanthimos' previous movies, nothing is all as it seems and things take weird turns and much like his other films, this is really good. He directs in such a way that makes watching off putting, not by the story but by how he frames each shot and the way it is performed. His direction feels so sophisticated and intelligent by just the way everything is chosen. He loves using animals in his films for different reasons and I adore it.

Olivia Coleman recently received her award for Best Actress at The Golden Globes and now has been nominated for Best Actress at the Bafta's, I expect she'll get one for Oscars too and I think it's easily well deserved but I don't think she is the best in this film. Emma Stone is also wonderful in this too but, to me, Rachel Weisz is fantastic. She held the film in the palm of her hand and I believe was miles ahead in her performance. It unspeakable how great she was.

The score is really good here and that was going to be evident just from listening to the trailers music. After each scene's chapter cards appear on screen, the score they use is an informative way of identifying to the audience how that chapter will go about and it's really smart and different. Costume Design as well, really stands out and usually does in most Victorian age dramas but the patterns and particularity of these costumes make it kind of uneasy to the eye and especially in the duck race scene with all the vagrant colours and loud amounts of hair.

The first half of the film is great! It's seriously really good but as it gets on the narrative drops and I started to lose interest in what was going on. It tragically stopped having the interesting drama and comedic side and quite frankly became mundane and tiring until the third act quickly pushed into play. The structure is great but the pacing and narrative didn't help in its favour. I felt the dialogue on occasions didn't correlate with the period it was set in and it became quite jarring as the dialogue at most was great and didn't include too much expeditionary moments.

The ending of this movie is seriously depressing. Leaves you cold and bitter with sadness for the queen as she has just realised what she did. The use of rabbits to show an emotion overcoming someone ends the whole story perfectly. I want to go into more detail but I won't spoil it.

To sum up this review, The Favourite is a battle for the queens approval with a dash of whit and peculiarity.