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The Favourite

✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭   Read critic reviews

Ireland, United Kingdom, USA

•

2019

Rated R • 2h 0m

Director Yorgos Lanthimos

Starring Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, Nicholas Hoult

Genre Drama, History, Comedy

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In 18th century England, the close relationship between Queen Anne and Sarah Churchill is threatened by the arrival of Sarah's cousin, Abigail Hill. The result is a vicious rivalry between the two cousins to be the Queen's favorite.

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WHAT ARE PEOPLE SAYING?

Hannah Benson Profile picture for Hannah Benson

Love the trio of Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, and Olivia Coleman. Lanthimos films are always a weird journey. I love the use of fisheye lenses (DP Robbie Ryan), which I read was inspired by the reflections on mirrors in Jan Van Eyck paintings. Mostly, I love the absurdity of court life paired with Lanthimos' wit.

Melanie Greenberg Profile picture for Melanie Greenberg

Walking out of the theater, my friend almost threw up because the film, and the complexities of the relationships were so depraved. But somehow we all understood it completely.

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WHAT ARE CRITICS SAYING?

88

TheWrap by Alonso Duralde

Watching these three fiercely intelligent women, played by a trio of powerhouse actresses, is endlessly fascinating, as the goalposts constantly shift and their true selves become more apparent.
100

The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney

[Yorgos Lanthimos'] fabulously entertaining tragicomedy, The Favourite, is a juicy power tangle connecting three women in the royal court of early 18th-century England, played by a divine trio who bounce off one another with obvious relish.
100

CineVue by John Bleasdale

The Favourite has ribaldry and intelligence to burn, a deliciously entertaining period piece that feels liberated by its period, rather than restrained and invigorates like a glass of wine thrown violently in your face.
100

Screen International by Lee Marshall

The Favourite is one of those rare films where the energy generated by three talents at the top of their game and the energy generated by their characters swirl and merge in a perfect storm.
91

The Film Stage by Leonardo Goi

Endlessly quotable and serendipitously timely — all the more so considering the whole project was conceived nine years ago — The Favourite is a zany, piercing close-up on three women so replete with swagger as to reduce their male counterparts to disposable extras.
91

IndieWire by Michael Nordine

Lanthimos wants us to examine the different reasons we grasp at power — avarice, self-preservation, even fear — and better understand its corrosive effects.
90

Variety by Owen Gleiberman

It’s a perfectly cut diamond of a movie — a finely executed, coldly entertaining entry in the genre of savage misanthropic baroque costume drama.
80

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

The Favourite may have corrected Lanthimos’s tendency towards arthouse torpor. It is a scabrous and often hilarious film, made loopier by the nightmarish visions and wide-angle distortions contrived by the cinematographer Robbie Ryan.
80

The Telegraph by Robbie Collin

This is a skewer-sharp and scabrously funny film, stuffed with quotable deadpan exchanges, often punctuated by that now-trademark Lanthimos camera manoeuvre, the wide-angle whip pan that seems to ask “now what?”

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