The Favourite (2018)

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!!!

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

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.

The Favourite fmovies. 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.

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.

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.