Review of The Favourite (2018) by Moviemitch96 — 12 Dec 2018

The director of this film, a Greek director named Yorgos Lanthimos, is known for his very bizarre and absurdist style of plot and filmmaking, and this film is no exception. Being a big fan of his most recent previous films (The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer), I was really looking forward to this one.

Set in early 1700s England, it follows Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) and two young women (Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz) vying for her admiration and attention as her servants, all in the midst of a war with France.

Like I said, the film is very absurdist in nature, and is infused with plenty of deadpan and dark humor, which kept the film interesting and amusing enough at times. In addition, Colman, Stone, and Weisz were all brilliant and spot-on, their performances fitting and adapting to the film's absurdism quite well.

Naturally, with its period setting, it was also a very aesthetically pleasing film to watch as well, with lavish production design, costumes, etc. On the flip side, unfortunately, while the film started out so promising, lively, and energetic in the first half, much like a major character that suffers a stroke in the second half, the film began to really slow down and drag, losing much sense of direction, and feeling rather aimless the more it progressed.

Overall, aside from a witty (but also cringy at times) screenplay full of dialogue that's somehow humorous and shocking all at once often times, striking performances from the cast, and incredibly detailed production values, I found the film to be rather weak and half-baked in terms of story.

Very promising and amusing first half, but a very slack, underwhelming, and disappointing second half that left much to be desired for me.