Listen Here
By: Dylan Frazier
Email: Frazierd@findlay.edu
With nominations that include Best Actress, Best Picture, and two Best Supporting Actress, The Favourite is quite the spin on traditional English royal families in the 18thcentury. The story follows the Queen (Olivia Colman) and her servants (Rachel Weiss and Emma Stone) during a war against the French. What I expected was just a typical war time movie where the country needs to figure out how to react. But what I got was a very dark comedy that shows that people are willing to do anything to be the favorite.
Again, this is isn’t just your typical run-of-the-mill war story, in fact this movie has nothing to do with the war other than the story is during the war. It really focuses on the servants, Abigail (Stone) and Sarah (Weiss) trying to be Queen Anne’s (Colman) favorite servant in the castle. But what we soon find out is that Queen Anne is a lesbian, which Abigail and Sarah both know. Once they both realize they know, the story really starts to get going.
What I really liked in this movie was the performances by Rachel Weiss and Emma Stone. They were hilarious. Neither of them had morals and were willing to do ANYTHING to be in the Queen Anne’s favor, which made for some pretty hilarious scenes. One scene in particular showed Anne, Sarah, and Abigail having tea. Abigail poisoned Sarah’s tea. It was so messed up that she was willing to let Sarah die just to be closer to Anne. What made it even funnier was that Sarah taught Abigail pretty much everything she knew about how to be on Anne’s good side. Not to mention Sarah and Abigail were cousins in the movie but that didn’t stop them from being awful people.
I think what I liked most was that this movie was not what I thought it was going to be. I was almost certain that this was supposed to be just a traditional piece about early-18thcentury England, which interested me. What I got was a very dark and sadistic comedy that showed that people are willing to do anything for power, which was even more interesting. It took a story that has been told countless times and did a complete 180 on it. It was something different and thankfully it worked.
I recognize that this movie isn’t for everyone because it is very different from what we normally think of when we think of comedy. But for me, this was one of the funnier dark comedy movies I’ve seen in a while. Just when I thought that there was no way they could be any worse than they are, they outdid themselves. It made for a great time and didn’t feel like it was very long either.
