Favorite (2018) Online

The Favourite, the seventh feature from Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos, is a film that eschews both convention and expectation. On the other hand, it's also Lanthimos's most accessible by a country mile. A savage morality play, a camp comedy of manners, a Baroque tragedy, an allegorical study of the corruptive nature of power - it's all of these and yet none of them. A film I liked but didn't love, on the one hand, it's too long, the plot too threadbare, and the metaphors and allegories too ill defined. On the other, the acting is flawless, it looks amazing, the first half is very, very funny, and the end is very, very dark, with the last shot one of the most haunting/disturbing images I've seen in a long time.

Telling the story of Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (an icy Rachel Weisz) and Abigail Hill (Emma Stone, charting a course from doe-eyed ingénue to vicious Machiavellian intrigant) and their increasingly bitter rivalry for the affections of Queen Anne (an absolutely mesmerising Olivia Colman), The Favourite is the first film Lanthimos has directed which neither he nor Efthymis Filippou wrote (the script was originally written by Deborah Davis in 1998 and later refined by Tony McNamara). However, make no mistake, this is most definitely a Yorgos Lanthimos film, with his peculiar Weltanschauung omnipresent. The emotionless and monotone delivery of dialogue has been scaled back considerably from The Lobster (2015) and The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), but everything else you'd expect is here - the pseudo-omniscient judgemental glare; the dark absurdist sense of humour; the formal rigidity; the emotional isolation of the characters; the surrealism; the games of psychological one-upmanship; the alienation of the audience; the thematic centrality of shifting power relations; the lack of distinction between poignancy and joviality; the use of self-contained and closed off pocket universes where characters must play by rules differing from those of the outside world; intimate familial conflict (except in bigger rooms than in his previous films); and a disorienting score. Similarly, whilst The Lobster was a savage dystopian-set allegory for discipline and conformity, The Favourite is a merciless satire of decadence and pettiness, taking in such additional themes as class, gender, love, lust, duty, loyalty, partisan politics, patriarchal hegemony, and women behaving just as appallingly as men.

As one would expect from Lanthimos, the film is aesthetically flawless, with many of the compositions having the appearance of a fête galante painting, so meticulously integrated are Sandy Powell's costume design, Fiona Crombie's production design, and Robbie Ryan's cinematography. Powell's costumes are historically inaccurate, but thematically revealing, with the situation of the characters at any given moment directly influencing the design, especially in relation to Abigail as she climbs the social ladder. In a more general sense, the black-and-white colour scheme of much of the wardrobe contrasts magnificently with Crombie's predominantly brown production design, with the actors effortlessly standing out from the backgrounds. The occasional use of black-and-white stripes is also worth mentioning, as it subliminally intimates that the characters are imprisoned, not so much by their physical milieu, but rather within the hypocrisy, pettiness, and forced politeness of the Royal Court.

Of Ryan's photography, perhaps the most impressive feat is that, despite the many scenes tracking characters through rooms, up stairs, and out doorways, there's not a single Steadicam shot anywhere in the film. He also makes copious use of 6mm fish-eye lenses, which distort the spaces the characters occupy whilst also showing much more of the environment than a normal lens, creating the sense of characters lost within an overload of background visual detail. Combined with the whip pans seen throughout the film, the cumulative effect is a world rendered strange, a place of distortion and unnatural compositions. As with most of Lanthimos' work, the film also uses natural light, which makes for some stunning candle-lit night-time compositions, partially recalling the paintings of someone like Jean-Antoine Watteau or, even moreso, Georges de La Tour.

In terms of acting, there really are no words to describe just how good Colman is. Utterly inhabiting the character, she is able to elicit empathy mere moments after behaving thoroughly shamefully, communicating a sense of both tragic inevitability and a childlike refusal to accept reality. The character could easily have been a grotesque villain or a pitiful broken shell, but Colman finds a nobler middle ground, straddling both interpretations without fully committing to either, moving from one to the other seamlessly throughout the film. Yes, she can be a horrible person with appalling manners and questionable hygiene, but she is also deeply lonely, a survivor who has lost 17 children in childbirth, a woman whose health has made her old before her time, a tragic figure too naïve to see how badly she is being manipulated by Sarah and Abigail. Rather than trying to downplay the contradictory facets of the character, Colman leans into them, illuminating Anne's humanity amongst her least appealing characteristics, and finding both wit and pathos in a character whose mercurial nature and excessive neediness could easily have rendered her the film's antagonist. It truly is one of the finest on-screen performances in a long time.

The film's most salient theme, one could argue its very raison d'être, is the dynamic of gender politics. Men, in general, are background players, existing only to be mocked, exploited, and duped - with their ridiculous wigs and heavy makeup, they exist only to support the women. However, what's especially interesting about the film's depiction of gender is that the world of women is anything but a utopia. Yes, it's relatively free of toxic masculinity and the male gaze, but in most other aspects, there's no real difference between the matriarchy and the patriarchy. Sure, the women are much smarter than the men who surround them, but they are no less greedy or cruel. At the film's post-première press conference at the Venice Film Festival, Lanthimos explained, "what we tried to do is portray women as human beings. Because of the prevalent male gaze in cinema, women are portrayed as housewives, girlfriends... Our small contribution is we're just trying to show them as complex and wonderful and horrific as they are, like other human beings." Similarly, when asked by the Hollywood Reporter if a film about females treating each other badly might be considered a setback in a post #MeToo era, Colman explained, "How can it set women back to prove that women fart and vomit and hate and love and do all the things men do? All human beings are the same. We're all multifaceted, many-layered, disgusting and gorgeous and powerful and weak and filthy and brilliant. That's what's nice. It doesn't make women an old-fashioned thing of delicacy."

As regards criticisms, although I personally wouldn't class them as flaws, some people will probably dislike the same things that many have disliked in Lanthimos's previous work - cold formal rigidity, perverse sense of humour, and irredeemable characters being irredeemably horrible to one another. There will be those who find the obviously intentional anachronisms too much, whilst others will take umbrage with the disregard for historical authenticity. For me, whilst I admire Lanthimos for trying to bring something new to his oeuvre, especially when compared to Sacred Deer, I felt the film was oftentimes trying to work its way through an identity crisis, unsure of exactly what kind of tone to settle on. I had similar feelings about the allegories that run throughout, but are never what you would call fully fleshed out. Obviously, it's a treatise on power and the ridiculous opulence of royalty, but that's not exactly an untapped issue in cinema. Additionally, one of my biggest problems with Sacred Deer was how utterly pointless it felt, and although I got a lot more out of The Favourite, I had something of the same reaction to it. It could also be argued that the characters are a little two dimensional, and filmgoers who need a protagonist to latch onto, someone to root for, will be left rudderless.

Superior to Alpeis (2011) and Sacred Deer, but not a patch on Kynodontas (2009) or The Lobster, The Favourite will probably attract a sizable unprepared audience because of awards buzz, positive reviews, and excellent trailer. Undoubtedly, for a lot of people, this will be their first exposure to Lanthimos, and I can only imagine what people expecting a Merchant Ivory costume drama will make of it all. Neither morally enlightening nor historically respectful, The Favourite offers a bleak assessment of humanity's core drives; not Lanthimos's bleakest, but a hell of a lot more nihilistic than an average multiplex goer will be used to. The characters within the film live in a milieu of egotism, narcissism, sexual cruelty, psychological bullying, greed, and hunger for power. There's barely a hint of sentimentality, and very little that could be called morally righteous. I would have liked it to have more meat on its bones, but at the same time, one cannot deny that it presents something of a faithful looking-glass, as Lanthimos continues to corner the market in pointing out not just humanity's worst foibles, but its most egregious eccentricities and lamentable character defects.

Sumptuous and stunning. With THE FAVOURITE, director Yorgos Lanthimos delivers his best film yet - one that works as both a historical drama and a sex comedy that features beautiful cinematography courtesy of Robbie Ryan (Lanthimos really loves him some fisheye lenses) and gorgeous costume design courtesy of Sandy Powell (just give her the Oscar already because wow). Lanthimos, working for the first time with a screenplay that he didn't co-write, deals primarily with themes of power and the way it impacts the three women at the center of the film. Despite not having had a hand in writing the screenplay, Lanthimos seems to be in his wheelhouse, crafting a stirring yet (darkly) humorous rumination on humankind's innate desire to posses power, whether it be political, sexual, or anything in between. Granted, Lanthimos is also working with some of the most talented actresses working today and the big three (Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone) all deliver some of the best work of their career. As crazy as it might sound, however, and despite Colman's Best Actress win at Venice for her portrayal of Queen Anne, this is Stone's film. I'm already frustrated by the fact that she will be campaigned in the Best Supporting Actress field despite the fact that the film wholly follows her arc. That's not to take anything from Colman, whose performance is likely the most impressive of the three, but I do feel it's something to take note of.

However, the film isn't flawless, and it once again demonstrates that Lanthimos' greatest weakness as a director is his inability to deliver a satisfying conclusion. I loved THE LOBSTER, but the last ten minutes left a bitter taste in my mouth that I detested. I was a bit cooler on THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER, and the last ten minutes proved a bit too dark for me. This time, even a great final shot isn't enough to save the last fifteen minutes of the film from seeming necessary. The film simply (and suddenly) runs out of steam before it crosses the finish line - an unfortunate occurrence considering the fact that nearly everything before it proved wickedly entertaining. That being said, I'm excited to see what Lanthimos does next. I just hope he nails the ending.

I read the rave reviews before the film opened and really looked forward to it. I read them after the I'd seen the film and thought that I must have inadvertently gone into the wrong screening and watched a different film. The film I watched turned out to be an overblown (at least 30 minutes too long) stylised, pretentious piece of nonsense only saved by three great actresses at the absolute peak of their powers. The soundtrack was as irritating as it was superfluous and the foul language as gratuitous as it was unnecessary. I thought that maybe my response was because I didn't get it, being English and familiar with this type of film, but I saw the film in the US and the mood of the audience throughout and especially upon the ridiculous ending was almost unanimously negative - and volubly so. I realise that in terms of reviews I appear to be in a tiny, tiny minority but if I can save one person from wasting their money on this film my work will have been done.

Once again, Yorgos Lanthimos disappoints me. Before you vote my review as an unhelpful, lemme explain myself. Perhaps I have an issue with his movies, because I have never enjoyed any of his work, and this movie, unfortunately, is no exception.

Because of the hype and the multiple Oscar nominations, I had high expectations of it, but none of them were fulfilled. Here we have the story of Queen Ann (Olivia Colman) and two women who lived with her - Lady Marlborough (Rachel Weisz) and Abigail (Emma Stone). Be warned - there is no plot in the movie, only a lesbian love triangle among the 3 lead characters. At one point Abigail, who was nothing more than a servant of the palace, realizes that Lady Marlborough is the Queen's favorite for being her lover, so Abigail decides to give the Queen some love as well. Expect awkward, irksome scenes of oral sex between swollen, scab-covered legs - at this point, the audience should know "irksome" is Lanthimos's comfort zone. There's some childish jealousy when Abigail tries to poison Lady Marlborough and some even more childish melodrama when the Queen misses Lady Marlborough's touch and vice-versa. And a lot of rabbits. And that's it, and I am not exaggerating.

Of course, the movie has basically zero character development. We know all characters are flawed and do horrible things - like all characters in Lanthimos's movies do - but we don't know why they do these things, what happened to them in their lives to make them do what they do - and that's called character development, which lacks in this movie in a very blatant way. And to make matters worse, here we have the cliché-filled portrayal of a royal figure (the Queen) as a weak, gullible, laughable figure who is easily manipulated by servants and maids who seem to be smarter than Her Highness herself. Expect also the cliché scenes of the nobility in decadent parties , displaying deplorable habits. Yawn. As if we hadn't seen this is so many movies before.

Cinematography wise, I got tired, exhausted of the poorly-illuminated scenes and the fish eye camera. It made everything claustrophobic, which seems an useless strategy in this movie, because there was nothing shocking or claustrophobic going on, just a boring love triangle and a woman with bandages around her legs. The only remarkable elements in this movie, in my opinion are:

• Olivia's acting - Olivia Colman is unrecognizable as Queen Ann, in a very good way; (Rachel Weisz did nothing incredible here, her role was 0% risky dramatically speaking. Emma Stone had a more difficult role but once again she still displayed the same mannerisms she showed in "Easy A", "Lala Land" and almost every movie in which she acts - exaggerated, unconvincing, trying-too-hard gestures and expressions).
• Costume design;
• Art direction - decent artistic portrayal of the English Royalty during late 17th/early 18th century.

Unfortunately, this movie, which has probably cost a lot of money considering its production, art direction and costume design, was a waste of budget - such a beautiful ambiance fell flat into a boring, empty plot. This is movie is not either enlightening nor shocking, neither incisive or witty, it's just a boring love triangle with very disturbing characters disguised as some "fun criticism" of the nobility and the high class.

Let me preface my review with me saying that I have never had a film experience where I have been genuinely uncomfortable in. I have watched The Human Centipede Series, Saw, and plenty of other gory cinema that has hardly made me cringe. But for some odd reason, The Favourite made me cringe and feel sick half of the time.

Now STOP. Before you flag my review or declare me unhelpful. Let me say this: I think the film had a unique score, excellent acting all around, an intriguing story, and played off the tropes of stereotypical British historical dramas, but the film was not for me.

Because honestly, the absurdity of this film was way too much for me, and I hardly ever say that. I will acknowledge the film was great technically and narratively, but I couldn't stand it.

The Favourite is supposed to be a historical drama with tons of comedy and a light bit of thriller thrown into it, but when it came to the comedy, I couldn't get with it. While the Laemmle Playhouse audience laughed at every single line of dialogue that would come out of someone's mouth, I could not take it. I think throughout the whole film, I laughed maybe 15%, and about 80% of that laughter was cringe laughter. A lot of the film was pure bonkers, and I couldn't really get into it.

The concept of playing against the trope that British historical figures are normally conservative and well spoken, and having them instead be balls-to-the-wall mentally insane and outlandish in this film, is an interesting idea, but it did not work for me. There is literally a scene where a character gives a monologue to the camera about their evil plan, while stroking her newlywed's member. And I was thinking, what in the actual hell?? It was funny, but it was more weird than anything.

The film as a whole is just weird. I don't think it really cares as much about the narrative or the characters, but with how weird the setting can be. Whether it is really out of place dancing in the ball room (the only scene I burst out laughing at), the queen declaring how much they want to get oral pleasure, girls bathing in mud, really loud and obnoxious screaming, an annoying fish-eye lens, continuous rubbing of old women's feet, and even more screaming, I just couldn't find a point to any of it.

It is almost like the director is like "hey bro, look at how outlandish I made these uptight British royalty look. HAHA! Funny, funny!" I did not even really care.

I will give the film a rewatch when it comes out on digital, and have subtitles included, because sometimes that improves my film experience. But from what I can tell, The Favourite is definitely not really my cup of tea.

I will say this though: I will probably enjoy The Lobster and Dogtooth more than I will with this. Perhaps because they are not in a British royalty setting, which I have a hard time getting to in the first place.

Anyways, try not to hate me please. Remember, I acknowledge the achievements of the film, but it does not work for me. Think of that before you lynch me.

I was excited to watch this but found myself annoyed throughout the film. The soundtrack is absolutely irritating you'd want to mute just so it would finally stop grating on your nerves. I liked the 3 lead actresses, so I gave them a star each, but that's about it. Everything else is just BAD. and I mean really bad. By the end, I was seething inside. It's like the rage you feel when you've been duped. Because what an awful awful movie. DO NOT be fooled by the glowing reviews. You've been warned.

A strange film from start to finish. The film has totally unacceptable extreme foul language and a very weak and uninteresting story line. The use of different camera lenses doesn't work and just succeeds in making this disjointed film more confusing and pointless.

I'm sorry, but I don't agree with the high rating on this movie. Everything about it was weird. At some point the audio just got on my nerves, weird music. I agree with another reviewer on here that the whole time I was there it made me feel a little creepy. A very dark movie with a little comedy thrown in here and there.

Bizarre. Not funny. Waste of a plotline with 3 strong female leads and a waste of money. No idea why this movie is rated so highly.

While Lanthimos continues his eccentric and absurdist filmmaking tendencies, The Favourite is still an easy one to get behind and think deeply about. The premise is essential to all of the plot machinations: in early 18th century England, we are in Queen Anne's court, where political power and maneuvering is everything. Queen Anne is an entertaining central figure, as while all politics revolve around her and she can do what she wants, she also seems like a puppet and easily influenced. The real heart of the movie is Abigail's character arc and her rivalry with Sarah. Abigail, played wonderfully by Emma Stone (who in my opinion should've been considered the lead actress, not Olivia Colman), comes from a family who was wealthy but fell far, and comes to her cousin Sarah looking for a job in the palace. Sarah is intelligent, knowledgeable in the political game, and the Queen's closest adviser. Abigail is immediately who we root for, as an outsider ready to work hard and earn a successful role near the Queen. We see her develop from believing that the best way to rise is through honor and loyalty, but quickly sees that everyone is playing political games and becomes ruthless in outstripping Sarah for the Queen's affection. The script is phenomenal and treats the characters very consistently but never one-dimensionally, by clearly showing their motivations but also portraying them realistically as humans. The humor really works, from the absurdist touches like the duck races to the funny dialogue, like when Sarah tells the Queen she looks like a badger and the Queen agrees. The ending, while an ambiguous one, I think symbolizes the Queen's loneliness and struggle for control, as that final shot of Abigail rubbing her leg fades into rabbits. There seems to be a lot going on, but really it's a fun character drama between these three players in an extremely politically charged and power driven society, and particularly Abigail's development and increasing ruthlessness within that framework. On all of those counts, it's very successful as a film, balancing coherence and intelligent filmmaking with innovation and quirks as Lanthimos always does. Every scene builds up and further develops the characters, and none contradict or seem meaningless, which is a sign of a great movie and great script. Purely for my own future memory, I'm copying down a line I thought was really funny: "Obviously you have chosen to keep the particulars of your dismissal from me. I shall leave a gap in the conversation for you to remedy that."

I was invited to see this film by my wife and had no pre-conceptions other than admiring Olivia Colman's work on British television. I did not know the director or his previous films. I am no historian and know very little about the period in which the film is set. Understanding context is crucial to the telling of any story, yet the viewer is given very little information about how the main characters came to be in the situation depicted: How had Anne become queen? Who had given her multiple miscarriages and been father of her deceased offspring? We are not even given a date to hang the events on. This is probably deliberate since it gave the director the freedom that imprecision allows to impose his own agenda on what for many is little-known period of English history - which is exactly what he does.

What follows is two hours featuring some fine female performances, lavish costumes and location settings, incongruous dialogue, clumsy 'shock' scenes, sub-Greenaway imagery accompanied by a disjointed and distracting soundtrack.

Subsequent reading has revealed that director Lanthimos aims to produce a disconnection between dialogue and setting and to alienate through language - in this regard the film must surely be seen as a triumph.

However, I suggest that cinema relies upon more than the implementation of an intellectual conception. The almost unanimous praise of this film by critics is notably at odds with the comments of those who have actually paid to watch the film, many of whom were encouraged by praise heaped upon it. The audience I watched the film with were not rolling in the aisles in response to the apparently intended humour, aside from the odd embarrassed titter, it was silent and the speed with which they left the auditorium wondering what possible connection Elton John had with Queen Anne was notable.

This was probably not helped by the unreadable 'style over function' graphics used for the end-credits. As a professional graphic designer, I deplore the approach which is disrespectful to both contributors and audience. It typifies the arrogance of a film that has high-jacked history to provide a vehicle for contemporary sensibilities.

With little narrative momentum or development, The Favourite descends into over-long, self-indulgent tedium. A likely candidate for an armful of Oscars and Baftas.

I am astounded that this film has received so much acclaim. Three cheers though for the performances, costumes, efforts at period accuracy. Jeers for the distressing, murky, low-angle, wide angle photography, some aspects of the mind-numbing sound design and the over-all bad taste this film left me with. Oh, and yes, mustn't forget that final series of dissolves, which was reminiscent of a student film I saw long ago. Wabbits. Wabbits! Wabbits!!!

I literately signed up with IMDB to share was an awful travesty this film is. First of all, it is not a comedy. It is two hours of ugliness. A few chuckles ensued in my full house audience in the first half hour, because they expected to come for a comedy, which gave way to nervous chuckles, and capped off with confused WTH expressions as the awful conclusion. There is no plot, a story, but no plot. One would think this hack of a director would have learned this in film school. I mean the rest of the film with its sophomoric over the top lens selections and transitions screamed "look, I went to film school!". And my god, the awful sound track ALONE had me thinking of heading to the door, with the ostensibly tension building staccato beat invoked not once but TWICE with no correlation to the scenes. Do yourself a HUGE favor, ignore the positive reviews, skip this one and go watch Dangerous Liaisons.

I was expecting better. The film has some bones to which a good movie could have been made. I believe in the 3 main actresses and the general idea for the story. The costumes and sets looked great.

But a lot of the storytelling came off as pretentious, over the top, confusing, boring or dumb.

I didn't understand the point to a lot of the movie and after reading some of the reviews, even the positive ones and ones with spoilers, it appears I'm not the only one who couldn't explain a lot of the movie.

I agree with the common note that the music is annoying. There were a couple scenes where they replayed the same couple rhythmic notes over and over and over and over again. And it was to no obvious purpose unless their point was to piss me off and distract me. Dunkirk has some similar musicnear the beginning. But in Dunkirk it reflected the building tension of the scene and sped up. In the Favourite it felt like a poor imitation which didn't understand why it worked in Dunkirk.

Most of the time the score was fine. But the 2 moments with the repeating rhythm were difficult to overlook.

The use of fowl language and gratuity didn't bother me. But too often I couldn't understand the overall purpose or goal or insinuations of other moments. At times I wondered what exectly we were supposed to think was really going on. But given that at times the film wasn't afraid to gratuitously say what was going on, it made it rather difficult to suppose the less literal take on events was the justifiable presumption.

Many of the wide fish-eye camera Angles were also distracting. And the pacing felt slow. I think more daringly odd choices typically work when they are added more subtly than what is seen in The Favourite.

To put it simply: the style and content were too prevalent and confusing for me to sufficiently get invested in a good story or a good movie. It's not my Fovourite.

Nothing to spoil here. Two hours of agony (with great costumes). The ending is cringe worthy.

Whenever a movie splits an audience into 10 and zero ratings you usually have a masterpiece. This movie is a masterpiece.

Enthralling from the very beginning and bursting with enthusiasm, this endlessly funny period piece, mixed with a ravishing love triangle, is Lanthimos at his most accessible, all while maintaining the mordacious social commentary and absurdist tone that made him such a phenomenon. Needless to say, "The Favourite" is marvelously shot, capturing with elegance the grandeur of its setting through gorgeous steadicam and extravagant wide angles, but what really sets it apart are the characters that are shown against it. Arguably the most fascinating showcase of acting from each of its three leads, the dynamics of the trio are effervescent, chock-full of disdainful side-glances, sharp smiles and lascivious touches, making every man look like a disposable accessory. Weisz is ever caustic as Sarah Churchill, the queen's confidant and lover, who actually rules the kingdom through her, and Stone is ravishing as Abigail, Sarah's cousin, who plays a naïve, gleeful servant, but secretly will spare no efforts in order to become the queen's new favourite. However, it is Colman who steals the spotlight, through her mesmerizing performance of Queen Anne. Infantile and broken, impulsive and lustful, needy and erratic all at once, she takes credit for almost every one of the most iconic moments of the film, which are several, through her delicious tantrums and hilarious excesses, but most notably, through a few long, mathematically precise close-ups, during which her expression changes so subtly, yet so richly, that she conveys an extensive array of emotions, disarming the viewer with desperate loneliness and melancholy. All of that innovating and beguiling experience could never have been made possible without an incredibly solid script, whose segmented structure and whimsically titled chapters make the audience anticipate, with an expectant smile, what kind of wicked schemes and betrayals will come next. While it is riveting and lively until two thirds well into the plot, some of the viewers might be left disappointed at how it becomes hopeless and dark. The sudden change of pace, however, is deliberate and calculated, leading to a visually unforgetable ending scene, as each of the characters finally realize the inescapable consequences of their extravagant behaviours. Ultimately, "The Favourite" is an admirable confluence of talent, whose likes mainstream cinema only glimpses rarely, and that will leave audiences marveled and eager for more.

Not just me and my girl but several people vocally commented "horrible, waste of time". Almost every person in the theater left with a WTH look on their faces. Some humorous parts, but definitely not a comedy like it's being billed. Very good acting but the most annoying soundtrack. The worst film I've seen In years.

As several others have said I have no idea what film the people giving this 9 or 10 stars were watching but it can't have been this one! Disjointed pointless drivel from start to finish, easily the worst film I have seen for a very long time. Need I go on ...

Where did they find (or hire) so many people to write positive reviews?! This was one of the worst movies I've EVER seen. I love Emma Stone, but this movie was disjointed, pointless, and extremely boring.

Throughout this movie characters vomit. While I wouldn't say that it will make you do the same, I certainly found it deadly dull. And pretentious. The story has some basis in history. It takes place near the end of the reign of England's Queen Anne, around 1711-1713, during which time the War of Spanish Succession-the war between England and France that is mentioned on occasion-was drawing near its end. The Queen's husband, Prince George of Denmark, had died in 1708, after having gotten her pregnant 17 times - enough to justify switching romantic interest away from men for any woman. Sarah, the Duchess of Marlborough, who had already managed to become the Queen's friend, and-at least in this movie-something more than that as well, has come to exert real influence over the Queen because of her willingness to play to the monarch's desire for affection from other women. As the movie opens, Abigail Hill, a distant relative of Sarah's, arrives at court with the hope of getting preferment there. She sees how Sarah receives favor from the Queen, and decides that she can play that game as well if it will allow her to advance at court. Lesbian intrigue follows. The costumes are fine, there is some intriguing lighting, and early in the movie some different types of lenses provide unusual shots. The acting, to the extent that the women in these roles get to act, is all fine. But, for me, this was a succession of too-often unexplained scenes and strange behavior that I found pretentious in the extreme. I can understand that, if they have to consume a steady diet of play-by-the-numbers action movies, film critics get excited over something different and not formulaic. But for me different and not predictable does not, in itself, produce a movie interesting enough to hold my attention for two hours. I found myself nodding off on occasion-and it was only the middle of the afternoon-because none of it held my interest. Nor would I say that is movie strikes a blow for lesbians. The characters aren't interesting, so you don't really care about their relationships, which are presented as manipulative rather than romantic. The Queen never gets to say that the relationships she has with women are more fulfilling, or at least less stressful, than the marriage she had with Prince George. I just didn't see why the director wanted to resurrect this element of history in this way.

The worst movie of the year. So boring my partner fell asleep. Not funny, just plain vulgar despite great acting and gorgeous costumes

The Favourite is, so far, the best movie I've seen during VIFF. Its sharp intelligence and sarcastic approach devours the mind, cinematography wows, acting mesmerizes and overwhelms, soundtrack creates with the atmosphere of the movie that is so raw and somehow relatable to this day. With unusual, weird kind of approach, director Yorgos Lanthimos delivers his best to date, in my opinion. The writes are the ones getting a bow down from me, with explicit, honest and funny approach to a period biopic drama that will stand the test of time for sure

Boring plot, with little comedy, action, or suspense. The ending was terrible. Don't be misled by the positive reviews. I suspect the star ratings will drop once it gets a wide release. Good acting but terrible movie.

I was very disappointed by this film. And the typical overhyped Oscar buzz!! This is not best picture material, Performances were good and Olivia Coleman was very good especially as the poorly Anne in the last 20 mins The story had good potential with the rival between Emma Stones and Rachel Weiss character and as the queen realised that Abigail is not all she appears be. Last shot was just too long and trying to be dramatic but was just stupid, the film just ends!!! The whole cinema was just confused at this point! What would have made a good movie was what happened next and how the queen deals with Abigail and brings back Sarah, But to be honest it was not!! So not worth a watch. There is a good movie from the story but this was only half explored,