Review of The Favourite (2018) by Jhep — 28 Jan 2019

A perfect dramatic vehicle to express The Age of Trump and the malaise currently engulfing many of us…..A look inside a decadent society-cum-political system that has totally lost its bearings. A giddy mixture of Fellini’s Satyricon, the BBC mini-series “I Claudius” and Bunuel and Dali’s “L’Age d’Or”.

…The film presents us with a sinister realm in which The Absurd has triumphed and, as a result, we find ourselves thrust into a bitter, ferociously angry and at times comical film which somehow combines elements of Lewis Carroll and Hieronymus Bosch.

We find ourselves immersed in dream-like, fairy tale realm dominated by an unquenchable lust for POWER, greed and infantilized vanity (sound familiar ?); an unhinged culture of sado-masochism, ennui and bizarre eccentricity ….

.The result is a dazzling achievement and (if you have the stomach for it) a refreshingly candid diagnosis of what now confronts us in this aforementioned Age of Trump. Finally let me say that “The Favourite” would makes a terrific double feature with Adam McKay’s “Vice”; his brilliant and searing re-visiting of the George Bush-Dick Cheney years in power/“government”.