Review of The Favourite (2018) by Jake C — 30 Dec 2018

It's hard to pin down just one part of the movie that was my favorite: The exceptionally acerbic dialogue; the stunning and often eye-popping cinematography; the exquisite set and costume design brought to vivid luster by the use of natural lighting; the truly trenchant performances, especially Colman's embodiment of the wavering strengths and weakness of impolitic monarchy.

Yet even as the story overflows with sterling filmmaking, the betrayals and seductions come about so squarely and easily that the movie never is able to achieve the tension necessary for the political and social commentary to really cut.

No doubt there is something here about the decrepitude of decadence and power, about the inevitable connection between sensual eroticism and political authority, about the dangers of flattery and the bulwark of love, but these themes are mostly overshadowed by a feeling of nihilism that none of it matters because in the end, faces and places and costumes will change but the institutions of power will live on unaffected.

Perhaps this conceptual confusion is most problematic in the way the film treats the abuse of power for sexual ends: Rather than reflect the current social dialogue about people using positions of influence to exploit people in need, the movie oddly reverses that dynamic, depicting a ruler whose sexuality and loneliness is taken advantage of by those we would usually see as the victims.

A problematic message in today's environment, to say the least, though it makes for good melodrama.