The Favourite

Forget everything you think you know about the "corset and carriage" genre. Usually, these movies are polite, hushed affairs where people argue over tea and stare longingly at rainy windows. They are the cinematic equivalent of a room-temperature chamomile tea. But then Yorgos Lanthimos (the brain behind The Lobster and Poor Things) decided to take a look at the reign of Queen Anne, and suddenly we have a period piece that feels more like a bar fight in a palace.

I’ll be honest: I went into the theater expecting to be bored—I was actually nursing a mild headache from a poorly-timed espresso—but within ten minutes, I was leaning so far forward I nearly fell out of my seat. The Favourite isn't interested in being a history lesson. It’s interested in being a psychological cage match. Released in 2018, it hit right as we were starting to see "prestige" cinema finally loosen its tie and get weird. It feels perfectly contemporary despite the 18th-century setting, largely because it treats its female leads as complex, terrifying, and hilarious human beings rather than fragile museum exhibits.

Mud, Blood, and Bitterness

The story centers on a triangle of desperation. Olivia Colman plays Queen Anne, a woman so crippled by gout and the grief of seventeen lost children that she’s essentially a giant, royal nerve ending. Her lifelong friend and secret lover, Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz), runs the country while the Queen plays with her rabbits. Then enters Abigail (Emma Stone), Sarah’s fallen-from-grace cousin, who starts as a scullery maid and ends up... well, let’s just say she’s a fast learner.

What makes this work is the script by Tony McNamara and Deborah Davis. They didn’t write "thees" and "thous." They wrote dialogue that cuts like a serrated knife. Historians who demand accuracy are just people who hate fun, and while this film plays fast and loose with the facts, it captures the emotional truth of power better than any dry biography. It’s about how proximity to the throne turns people into monsters, and how love can be the ultimate weapon of manipulation.

A Triple-Threat Power Struggle

The performances are the heartbeat of the film. Olivia Colman somehow manages to be pathetic, petulant, and deeply sympathetic all at once. She won an Oscar for this, and every second of her screen time proves why. Watching her switch from a screaming tantrum to a quiet, heartbreaking moment with her bunnies is a masterclass in range.

Then you have the chemistry between Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone. It’s a slow-burn war of attrition. Sarah is blunt and brutally honest; Abigail is all soft smiles and hidden poison. I found myself switching teams every twenty minutes. One moment I’m rooting for the underdog, the next I realize the underdog is actually a shark in a dress.

And let’s talk about the men. In a hilarious reversal of typical historical dramas, the men in this movie are essentially decorative poodles with better wigs. Nicholas Hoult is a comedic revelation as Harley, looking like he crashed a makeup counter while wearing a mountain of powdered hair. Joe Alwyn is equally funny as the "prize" Abigail seeks to win, treated mostly as a physical object to be moved around the board.

I watched this film on a Tuesday night while eating a bag of salt-and-vinegar chips that were so acidic they made my eyes water, and honestly, that sharp, stinging flavor was the perfect accompaniment to the dialogue.

The Lanthimos Lens

Visually, The Favourite looks like nothing else. Robbie Ryan, the cinematographer (who also shot Poor Things), used extreme wide-angle fisheye lenses that make the palace look like a distorted, opulent prison. It’s disorienting and brilliant.

Apparently, the production was full of these weird, creative swings that shouldn't have worked but did:

The Queen has 17 rabbits in her room, one for each child she lost. In reality, Anne did lose 17 children, but the rabbits were a Lanthimos invention to symbolize her grief. Emma Stone insisted on her brief nude scene in the woods because she felt it made sense for Abigail’s character to use her body as a tool without hesitation. The costumes were actually made from recycled fabrics, including old denim jeans, to give them a textured, modern edge that pops on screen. The dancing scene—which looks like a 1700s version of a vogue battle—was choreographed to be intentionally anachronistic. Almost the entire film was shot using only natural light or candlelight, which meant the actors were often working in near-total darkness. The screenplay actually sat in a drawer for twenty years because nobody was brave enough to produce a "lesbian royal drama" until Lanthimos came along.

This is the kind of movie that proves "Contemporary Cinema" doesn't have to mean "Superheroes." It means taking old stories and refracting them through a lens that feels urgent and daring. It’s funny, it’s cruel, and the final shot is one of the most haunting things I’ve seen in years. If you want a movie that tastes like a sharp cocktail and leaves you thinking about it for a week, this is your winner. Go for the acting, stay for the racing ducks.