Review of The Favourite (2018) by Liliana C — 07 Jan 2019

I have no idea what critics see in this movie, but I didn't enjoy this movie very much. There were some good pluses to it, but they were heavily out weighed by the minuses.

First the cons:

- The movie sets up a number of future conflicts throughout the first few acts, but few of them are ever given satisfying conclusions.

- Everyone in this movie is a jerk and/or incompetent. No one is remotely sympathetic or relatable in any way.

- The pacing of the movie had me bored to tears at times and once it's set up a number of situations it just kind of ends with no real resolution.

- There are a number of scenes in the movie that seem to serve no purpose. They don't really add anything to the story, and they don't really add anything to the characters.

- The movie tries to have funny quips in it, but a majority of them didn't really land (at least at the theater I was at.).

- The music is very jarring especially between acts. I found it pulled me out of the movie whenever we moved to a new act.

- This one is a small issue, so I hesitate to even bring it up, but the font they used for the credits and for each of the acts was really obnoxious.

They set every.

Line up like this and it made it kind of annoying to read what the act titles were.

The pros:

- Whoever did the costume design for this movie did a fantastic job. The look captures the late Baroque feel very well. The main characters also all had very distinct looks so it was easy to tell them apart.

- The sets were also incredibly well made. I would be astonished if the setting or costumes didn't at least get oscar nominations.

- Nicholas Hoult as Robert Harley was probably the most entertaining part of the whole movie. He was just such a jerk to everyone he interacted with in every scene. Any time he shows up there's about a 50% chance he's going to shove and/or threaten them.

Conclusion:

As someone who likes historical dramas and comedies, I was really hoping this movie would have been good. I would skip this one unless you really enjoy dry political drama with some slightly humorous moments.