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The Favourite
UK theatrical release poster
Directed byYorgos Lanthimos
Written by
Produced by
  • Ceci Dempsey
  • Ed Guiney
  • Lee Magiday
  • Yorgos Lanthimos
Starring
CinematographyRobbie Ryan
Edited byYorgos Mavropsaridis
Production
companies
Distributed byFox Searchlight Pictures[1]
Release dates
  • 30 August 2018 (2018-08-30) (Venice)[2]
  • 23 November 2018 (2018-11-23) (United States)
  • 1 January 2019 (2019-01-01) (Ireland and United Kingdom)
Running time
120 minutes[3]
Countries
  • Ireland[4]
  • United Kingdom[4]
  • United States[4]
LanguageEnglish
Budget$15 million[5]
Box office$96 million[6][7]

The Favourite is a 2018 satirical[8] absurdist[9] period dark comedy art film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, and written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara. A co-production between Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the film stars Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz. Set in early 18th-century Great Britain, it examines the relationship between cousins Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, and Abigail Hill, who will become Baroness Masham as the action progresses, as they vie to be court favourite of Queen Anne.

Principal photography took place at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire and at Hampton Court Palace, lasting from March to May 2017. The film premiered on 30 August 2018 at the 75th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for Colman. It was released theatrically in the United States on 23 November 2018 by Fox Searchlight Pictures, and in Ireland and the United Kingdom on 1 January 2019. The film was a box office success, grossing $96 million worldwide on a $15 million budget.

The Favourite received widespread critical acclaim, with particular praise drawn to Lanthimos's direction, the screenplay and performances of Colman, Weisz and Stone, and it won or was nominated for numerous awards, including ten Academy Award nominations, tying Roma for the most nominations of any film at that year's ceremony. It won ten British Independent Film Awards, seven BAFTA Awards, and eight European Film Awards, and Colman won Best Actress at each of those ceremonies, as well as the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, and others. The American Film Institute named The Favourite one of the top ten films of 2018 and since its release, it has been assessed as one of the best films of the 21st century.[10][11]

Plot

[edit]

In 1705, England is at war with France. Queen Anne is in poor health; she shows little interest in governing, preferring activities such as playing with her 17 rabbits, surrogates for the children she miscarried or who died in infancy. Her confidante, advisor, and furtive lover Sarah Churchill effectively rules the country through her influence over the Queen. Sarah's efforts to control Anne are undermined by Robert Harley, the Leader of the Opposition.

Abigail Hill, Sarah's impoverished younger cousin, arrives in search of employment. Her standing has been tainted by her father, who gambled her away in a game of whist. She is forced to do menial work as a scullery maid in the palace.

After seeing Queen Anne's gout, Abigail forages herbs for her. Sarah has Abigail whipped for entering the Queen's bedroom without permission but appoints her Lady of the Bedchamber after realising the herbs have helped the Queen. One night, Abigail witnesses Sarah and the Queen having sex. Harley asks Abigail to spy on them both, hoping to circumvent Sarah's authority. Abigail refuses and tells Sarah, implying that she knows about their secret.

Abigail kindles a friendship with Anne that becomes sexual. Sarah finds out and unsuccessfully tries to remove her. Knowing she has gained a powerful enemy and desperate to be a lady again, Abigail reconsiders Harley's offer. She drugs Sarah's tea, after which Sarah awakens in a brothel.

Anne, thinking Sarah has abandoned her, takes Abigail into her favour and allows her to marry Colonel Masham, thereby reinstating Abigail's noble standing as a Baroness. Abigail then helps Harley to influence the Queen's decisions about the war.

When Sarah returns, Abigail offers her a truce but is rejected. Sarah issues an ultimatum to Anne: change her stance on the war and send Abigail away or she will publicly disclose letters that detail their sexual relationship. Sarah, remorseful, burns the letters, but Anne nevertheless sends her away.

Lord High Treasurer and key advisor Godolphin convinces Anne to mend her relationship with Sarah, persuading Sarah to send a letter that Anne eagerly awaits. When Abigail, who has been promoted to Keeper of the Privy Purse, presents "evidence" that Sarah had been embezzling money, Anne does not believe her.

Sarah's letter arrives but is intercepted by Abigail, who burns it. Hurt that she did not receive the expected apology, Anne uses Abigail's claims about the embezzlement as an excuse to exile Sarah and her husband.

With Sarah gone and her position secure, Abigail begins to ignore Anne while indulging in society and openly having affairs. One day, she abuses one of Anne's rabbits. Anne, now very sick, sees what Abigail is doing, forces herself out of bed and angrily orders her to kneel and massage her leg. She gradually pulls Abigail's hair as Abigail winces and begrudgingly massages her.

Cast

[edit]

Production

[edit]

Writing

[edit]

Deborah Davis wrote the first draft of The Favourite in 1998. She had no prior screenwriting experience and studied screenwriting at night school. She took the first draft, which was titled The Balance of Power, to producer Ceci Dempsey, who responded enthusiastically.[12] Dempsey has said she was "haunted" by "the passion, the survival instincts of these women, the manipulations and what they did to survive."[13]

Before working on the screenplay, Davis had little knowledge of Queen Anne and her relationships with Sarah Churchill and Abigail Masham. She discovered a "female triangle" through her research, which included studying letters written by Queen Anne, Sarah, and Abigail, saying:

I did a lot of research and as it turns out, there is a wealth of original sources. You have historical accounts of the period. One of the best sources is Winston Churchill who wrote the story about his ancestor who was the Duke of Marlborough and he covers the female triangle and the relationship between Anne, Sarah and Abigail in his four-part biography. There are enormous amounts of sources out there. Another one was, of course, Sarah's memoir where she wrote about how she was replaced in the Queen's favour by Abigail and how Abigail had become the absolute favourite.[12]

Pre-production

[edit]
Director and co-producer Yorgos Lanthimos

Dempsey had difficulty securing financing for the film due to the script's lesbian content and the lack of male representation, which financers felt would be challenging to market. Almost a decade after she saw the first draft, producer Ed Guiney obtained the script. He was also attracted to the complex plot and relationships of the three women and has said: "We didn't want to make just another British costume drama ... [we wanted] a story that felt contemporary and relevant and vibrant—not something out of a museum."[5]

Around this time, Guiney became acquainted with Lanthimos, whose film Dogtooth (2009) had received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Guiney approached Lanthimos with the prospect of directing this film, and Lanthimos immediately became intrigued by the idea, as "[t]hese three women possessed power that affected the lives of millions" and, at the same time, he found the story to be "intimate".[5] He has said he was attracted to the script and how it acquainted him with "three female characters who happened to be real people", continuing that "it was an interesting story in its own right, but you also have the opportunity to create three complex female characters which is something you rarely see."[14]

Lanthimos began working closely with screenwriter Tony McNamara on "freshening up" the script, after reading McNamara's pilot script for The Great.[15] Of the film's lesbian-centric love triangle, Lanthimos said in 2018:

My instinct from the beginning was that I didn't want this to become an issue in the film, for us, like we're trying to make a point out of it ... I didn't even want the characters in the film to be making an issue of it. I just wanted to deal with these three women as human beings. It didn't matter that there were relationships of the same gender. I stopped thinking about that very early on in the process.[16]

He discussed how the Me Too movement related to the film, saying: "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."[14]

By 2013, the producers were receiving financing offers from several companies, including Film4 Productions and Waypoint Entertainment, which later worked on the film.[5] In September 2015, it was announced Lanthimos would direct the film from Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara's screenplay, which was described as "a bawdy, acerbic tale of royal intrigue, passion, envy, and betrayal",[17] and that Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, and Lee Magiday would produce under their Scarlet Films and Element Pictures banners, respectively.[18]

Of her working relationship with Lanthimos, Dempsey said:

He has a very particular, contained view. And he reserves it and conserves it, deliberately. He's very intuitive on every level. Casting, yes. Even hiring the department, it's all the same process ... You're not going to talk him into anything ever, ever, ever, ever. Once you accept that, you have to intuit or inhale what he wants, but he's got a very particular contained view and you just need to go with it.[19]

Casting

[edit]

Casting for The Favourite began in 2014 when Lanthimos contacted Olivia Colman.[13] By September 2015, it was announced Emma Stone, Colman, and Kate Winslet had been cast to portray Abigail Masham, Queen Anne, and Sarah Churchill, respectively.[18] By October 2015, Rachel Weisz had replaced Winslet.[20] The Favourite is the second collaboration between Lanthimos, Colman, and Weisz, both actresses having appeared in Lanthimos' The Lobster (2015).[21] In February 2017, Nicholas Hoult joined the cast of the film, followed by Joe Alwyn in March 2017.[22][23] On 8 August 2018, Mark Gatiss, James Smith, and Jenny Rainsford were announced as members of the cast.[24]

Casting was crucial for Lanthimos, who describes his process as "instinctive", saying: "It's one of those things when you feel you're right and you need to insist no matter what."[5] While Colman was his only choice for Queen Anne, after Winslet left the project, Lanthimos offered the role to Cate Blanchett before offering it to Weisz.[25][26] Stone auditioned after asking her agent to contact Lanthimos,[27] who then asked Stone to work with a dialect coach to make sure "we would be able to work creatively free without the accent being a hindrance in the way that we wanted to work".[28]

Colman found playing Anne "a joy because she sort of feels everything."[14] When asked if the character was just a petulant child, she responded: "she's just a woman who is underconfident and doesn't know if anyone genuinely loves her. She has too much power, too much time on her hands."[14] About the difference between Anne and the previous queens she has played, Colman said, "The other queens didn't get to fall in love with two hot women."[5] Weisz described the film as a comedy, comparing it to a "funnier, sex driven" All About Eve, and said she was primarily attracted to the project by the prominent female leads, considering her role to be "the juiciest" of her career.[29] Stone was hesitant to accept the role, at first thinking Abigail was "a sweet kind of girl, the victim, a servant to these people",[5] but changed her mind after reading the script and began "begging" Lanthimos to be cast. Her greatest concern was mastering her accent, saying: "It's 1705, which was about 300 years before any period I had ever done. It was pretty daunting on a few levels—having to be British and not stick out like a sore thumb."[30]

What makes The Favourite work are its women, who rule, both literally within the movie and outwardly, commanding our enjoyment [...] Lanthimos's latest makes the men extraneous, building a potent hothouse atmosphere that swirls with secret desires.

Critic Joshua Rothkopf's analysis of the gender dynamics in the film[31]

Hoult and Alwyn were intrigued to be part of a film dominated by three complex, leading, female characters. Hoult, commenting on the appeal a three-way love/power struggle would have for audiences, said: "It's obviously very timely to have three female leads, and it's wonderful to see because it's so rare".[32] Alwyn held similar views, saying: "It's unusual, I suppose, to have a film led by three women, and these three women are so unbelievably talented and generous as performers and also as people, and to spend time with them and be on set with them and everyone else was just a lot of fun. I was just happy to be a part of it at all. It's rare to get a film like this to come along that is so different from what we're used to seeing, especially with a director like this, so to be any part in it was brilliant."[32]

Prior to principal photography, Lanthimos engaged the main actors in an unorthodox rehearsal process that lasted three weeks. The actors "delivered their lines while trying to tie themselves in knots, jumping from carpet tile to carpet tile, or writhing around on the floor", according to the New York Times.[33] According to Weisz, one exercise involved the actors linking arms to create a "human pretzel [...] somebody's butt is in your face, your face is in their butt, and you're saying the lines for a really serious, dramatic scene while doing that."[34] Stone said Lanthimos wanted to see "how much we could sense each other without seeing each other",[5] and Colman said, "He had us do all sorts of things that keep you from thinking about what your lines mean".[33] As for himself, Lanthimos said he believed the rehearsals allowed the actors "to not take themselves too seriously, learn the text in a physical way by doing completely irrelevant things to what the scene is about, just be comfortable about making a fool of themselves".[5]

Filming

[edit]
The majority of the film's principal photography took place at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire.

Filming was expected to begin in the spring of 2016, but was postponed for a year, during which time Lanthimos made The Killing of a Sacred Deer.[35] Principal photography began in March 2017 at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire.[36][37] Regarding his choice of location, Lanthimos said: "from the beginning, I had this image of these lonely characters in [a] huge space".[38] Scenes that show Anne in "Parliament" were filmed in the Convocation House and Divinity School at Oxford's Bodleian Library.[39] After 45 days of filming,[38] production wrapped in May.[17]

The most challenging aspect of filming for cinematographer Robbie Ryan was trying to capture fluid camera movement without the use of a Steadicam:

We explored a lot of ways of trying to have a fluid camera movement that wasn't a Steadicam move. He showed me a film early on called Angst [...] He wanted to try and instill that in the way we shot The Favourite, but it was going to be really difficult to do that. Because of the costumes and just the physicality of it, it was not going to be possible. So we tried to come up with ways of being as fluid as we could with the camera. That was exciting because we came up with some interesting rigs—we explored different gimbal rigs and things like that.[40]

Lanthimos encouraged Ryan to use fisheye and wide-angle lenses for a majority of the shots, which Ryan believed contributed significantly to the story:

The wide lens is twofold. By showing you the whole room and also isolating the character in a small space [...] you get a feeling of no escape. I think one of the critiques of the film believed it was like a playground that turns into a battleground that turns into a prison. I think that's a very good explanation of what the film tries to get across with these characters. I think the wide lenses are pretty integral to that, as well.[40]

Set design

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Production designer Fiona Crombie drew inspiration for the film's colour palette from the chequered, black-and-white marble floor in the Great Hall at Hatfield House, noting that "a character will walk into a room and you get this incredible wide-shot—we're talking seeing from the floors to the ceilings to the corners. You see everything."[41] Several rooms at the house, particularly the one used as the Queen's room, were altered by removing paintings, furniture, and other decorations, to "put our own language into it."[41] The filmmakers used mostly natural lighting, even for the candle-lit night time scenes, which Crombie said was challenging because, "as you imagine, there are very strict protocols about managing candles [...] we had to use an enormous number of wax-catchers. But the people who manage Hatfield were very supportive and we negotiated and negotiated, and we would be able to do a vast majority of what we wanted to do."[42]

Costume design

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Because she was a fan of his work, costume designer Sandy Powell specifically sought out Lanthimos. She wanted Abigail's rise to power to be reflected in her costumes, as she "wanted to give her that vulgarity of the nouveau riche, and her dresses get a little bolder and showier. There's more pattern involved and there are black-and-white stripes [...] I wanted her to stand out from everybody else as trying too hard."[43] Since the film's Queen Anne spends most of her time wearing a nightgown because she is ill, Powell wanted her to have an "iconic" look and constructed a robe made of ermine:

This is the queen at her most queenly, in her ceremonial outfit [...] I looked at images and real things like it, and normally [this type of garment] would be solid gold, embroidered, and bejewelled, so I thought what else can I do just to give it an air of royalty? Ermine is associated with royalty, it's usually just used as a decoration in small amounts, so I decided to just cover her in it. Because in the rest of the film I have her in a nightgown, not bothering to get dressed every day.[43]

Although unintentional, Powell drew inspiration for Sarah's contrasting feminine gowns and masculine recreational attire from her earlier designs for Tilda Swinton's eponymous character in Orlando (1992), saying, "I didn't think about it at the time, it was just subliminal. I do think there is a similarity between the two films because Orlando was the last unconventional period film I'd done, so there is a similarity."[43]

During filming, Powell would deliver the costumes to the set, check they fitted the actors and that the actors had no problems, and would leave, as Lanthimos requested. Of this, she said:

He knew he wanted to be left alone with his actors and his camera. A lot of the time I wasn't aware of how it was going to be. Even when you see the dailies, you can't really tell until it's all put together [...] But when it all comes together, you're like of course it was all going to come together, he knows exactly what he's doing. We were all part of the jigsaw and he could put all the pieces together.[43]

Powell said Lanthimos wanted the women in the film to have natural hair and faces, but he wanted the men to wear considerable makeup and large wigs. About this choice, Lanthimos said: "Normally films are filled with men and the women are the decoration in the background, and I've done many of those, so it was quite nice for it to be reversed this time where the women are the centre of the film and the men are the decoration in the background. Of course, they've got serious, important parts, but I think the frivolity of them is quite funny."[43]

Powell commissioned Vicki Sarge to create the jewellery worn by the film's female characters. Initially only wanting a crown, Powell eventually requested earrings[44] after seeing Vicki Sarge pieces inspired by the Cheapside Hoard.

Soundtrack

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Further information: The Favourite (soundtrack)

The soundtrack of The Favourite consists mostly of baroque music, including pieces by Purcell, Vivaldi, Handel, and J. S. and W. F. Bach, but there are also pieces by romantic composers Schubert and Schumann,[45] 20th-century composers Olivier Messiaen and Luc Ferrari, and the 21st-century composer Anna Meredith.[46] The first song to play over the closing credits is "Skyline Pigeon" from Elton John's debut album Empty Sky (1969), which features John playing the harpsichord and organ.[47]

Johnnie Burn, the film's sound designer, said that "There was no composer on this film; we were working a lot in that space between music and sound"[48] and "used very specific EQ frequencies to shape [atmospheric sound] like score".[48]

Release

[edit]

In May 2017, the film's distribution rights were acquired by Fox Searchlight Pictures.[17] It had its world premiere at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on 30 August 2018,[49][50] was screened at the BFI London Film Festival[24] and the Telluride Film Festival,[51][52] and was the opening-night film at the New York Film Festival.[53] The Favourite was given a limited theatrical release in the United States on 23 November 2018,[54][55][56] and was released in Ireland and the United Kingdom on 1 January 2019.[57][58]

The film was released on Digital HD on 12 February 2019, and on Blu-ray and DVD on 5 March.[59]

Reception

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Box office

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The Favourite grossed $34 million in the United States and Canada, and $62 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of $96 million.[6][7] Its opening weekend, the film grossed $422,410 from four theaters; its per-venue average of $105,603 was the best of 2018, beating Suspiria's $89,903.[60] The film made $1.1 million from 34 theaters its second weekend (a per-venue average of $32,500),[61] $1.4 million from 91 theaters its third weekend (which followed the announcement of the film's Golden Globe nominations), and $2.6 million from 439 theaters its fourth weekend.[62]

Its fifth weekend of release, The Favourite opened across the U.S., grossing $2.1 million from 790 theaters that weekend, and $2.4 million the next.[63][64] In the film's tenth week of release, which followed the announcement of its ten Oscar nominations, it was added to 1,023 theaters (for a total of 1,540) and made $2.5 million, an increase of 212% from the previous weekend.[65]

Critical response

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The performances of Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz garnered widespread critical acclaim, with the first winning the Academy Award for Best Actress and the latter two being nominated for Best Supporting Actress.

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 430 reviews, with an average score of 8.5/10; the website's "critics consensus" reads: "The Favourite sees Yorgos Lanthimos balancing a period setting against rich, timely subtext—and getting roundly stellar performances from his well-chosen stars."[66] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 91 out of 100, based on 53 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[67] Audiences polled by PostTrak gave the film 2.5 out of 5 stars, with 37% saying they would definitely recommend it.[68]

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film five stars, writing: "Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz and the mighty Olivia Colman turn a period piece into a caustic comeuppance comedy with fangs and claws", "It's a bawdy, brilliant triumph, directed by Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos with all the artistic reach and renegade deviltry he brought to Dogtooth (2009), The Lobster (2015) and The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)", and "The Favourite belongs to its fierce, profanely funny female trio."[69][70] Anthony Lane of The New Yorker contrasted the film's ″unmistakable whiff of ... fun" to the mood of Lanthimos' previous film, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, making note of the strength of this film's female characters.[71]

In his review for Entertainment Weekly, Chris Nashawaty gave the film an "A" rating, praising the effective presentation of themes dealing with royalty and associated "steamier, fact-adjacent subplots" and saying: "It's worth pointing out that The Favourite is easily Lanthimos' most user-friendly movie, which isn't to say it isn't strange enough to please his fans, just that it may also convert a legion of new ones".[72] David Sims, writing for The Atlantic magazine, found the film to be a "deliciously nasty" satire of its historical period, stating: "Were it just a straightforward comedy, The Favourite would still be a success. It has plenty of satirical bite, and its plot structure (the roller-coaster-like power struggle between Abigail and Sarah) is an utter blast. But Lanthimos also manages to smuggle a shred of humanism into this chaotic world of backstabbing".[73]

Two reviewers for Entertainment Weekly, in their assessment of the year's best films, listed the film in first place, with Leah Greenblatt writing: "You might not actually want to live in Yorgos Lanthimos' sticky tar pit of palace intrigue—a place where Olivia Colman's batty Queen can't trust anyone beyond her pet rabbits, and Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone treat loyalty like a blood sport—but God it's fun as hell to visit".[74] The film was ranked number 35 in Vulture's list of over 5,200 films of the 2010s, with Angelica Jade Bastién praising the script, costumes, directing, and performances, which "work in concert to create a film of piercing magnitude".[75] It also ranked number 15 in Time Out's list of the "100 Best Films of the 21st Century So Far," with Phil de Semlyen writing "If eighteenth-century England was half as much fun as director Yorgos Lanthimos' regal romp makes it look, you'd say to hell with all the itchy skin complaints and rotten teeth and move there. The Favourite plays like The Crown on helium, with bawdiness and bitchiness vying for space with political manoeuvring that would have made Molière proud."[11] In 2023, it ranked number 35 on The Hollywood Reporter's list of "The 50 Best Movies of the 21st Century So Far," calling it Lanthimos' "most accessible" film, "but also arguably the richest in feeling and most dazzlingly performed, as well as chock-full of cruel ironies and caustic wit ... The dialogue blends modern colloquialisms with mock-17th century turns of phrase and a liberal sprinkling of Anglo-Saxon cuss words. That bracing mix of old and new courses throughout this feast of a film, from Robbie Ryan's digital cinematography, with its fish-eye lens, to Sandy Powell's stylized but period-accurate costumes."[10]

Accolades

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Main article: List of accolades received by The Favourite

The Favourite received numerous awards and nominations, starting by winning the Grand Jury Prize and the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the 75th Venice International Film Festival.[76] It won ten British Independent Film Awards (including Best British Independent Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actress), seven BAFTA Awards (including Best British Film and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Weisz), and eight European Film Awards (including Best Film and Best Director), and Colman won Best Actress at each of those ceremonies, as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, the Academy Award for Best Actress,[77] and numerous other awards. The film was nominated for four additional Golden Globes (including Best Picture – Musical or Comedy) and nine additional Oscars (including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress for both Stone and Weisz), tying Roma for the most nominations of any film at that year's Academy Awards. Additionally, the American Film Institute named the film one of the top 10 films of 2018.[78][79]

Historical accuracy

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Portrait of Queen Anne, from the school of John Closterman, c. 1702
National Portrait Gallery, London

Lanthimos said: "Some of the things in the film are accurate and a lot aren't."[80] Joe Alwyn said there was little concern for historical research of characters' backgrounds, saying:

I think people turn up to the rehearsal period thinking maybe they should've read their history books and thought about their characters and their intentions and all of that stuff that you normally think about but Yorgos made it quite clear early on there wasn't going to be much consideration for historical accuracy to a degree. He wasn't too caught up with or concerned about that. He just wanted us to have fun as people, as a cast and to explore the relationships between us, which is what we did.[81]

In his review of the film, Anthony Lane commented on its anachronisms, saying: "For Lanthimos and his screenwriters [...] all historical reconstruction is a game and to pretend otherwise—to nourish the illusion that we can know another epoch as intimately as we do our own—is merest folly".[71]

While the broad outlines of Sarah and Abigail's rivalry for Anne's attentions are true, many of the major episodes and themes of the film are speculative or fictional,[82][80] such as Abigail poisoning Sarah.[80] Any evaluation of the sexual aspect of the historical relationships depicted in the film requires an understanding of contemporaneous mores and practices and use of language, and arguments both for and against the possibility of a sexual relationship between Anne and Sarah or Abigail have been discussed by scholars of the era.[83][84] Most historians consider it unlikely Anne was physically intimate with her female friends, but Sarah, who is erroneously referred to in the film as "Lady Marlborough" (she became Duchess of Marlborough in 1702), is known to have tried blackmailing Anne with the threat of publishing private letters between them, which has led some to wonder if the letters contained evidence the two women had a sexual relationship.[85] Alternately, it has been speculated that Anne's health problems were severe enough that she may have had little sex drive.[80]

Queen Anne was close to her husband Prince George, Duke of Cumberland, but he is not portrayed in the film, though he lived until October 1708 and was therefore alive for much of the time covered.[82] Anne's loss of children is accurate, but she did not keep rabbits, which at that time were considered food or pests.[86]

See also

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References

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

The Favourite

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia

The Favourite is a 2018 historical black comedy-drama film directed by from a screenplay by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, loosely depicting the early 18th-century rivalry between cousins Abigail Masham and Churchill for the favor and influence of Queen Anne of amid the . Starring as the ailing monarch, as the ambitious Abigail, and as the incumbent , the film emphasizes themes of power, manipulation, and personal intrigue through stylized dialogue, anachronistic elements, and dark humor characteristic of Lanthimos's style. While inspired by real historical figures and events—including Anne's documented favoritism toward before Abigail's rise displaced her—the narrative takes substantial fictional liberties, particularly in exaggerating intimate physical relationships among the women, which contemporary accounts and historians deem improbable given Anne's devout and reproductive history. Premiering at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on 30 August 2018 and released theatrically in the United States on 23 November 2018 by Fox Searchlight Pictures, the film was produced on a $15 million budget and grossed $95.9 million worldwide, achieving commercial success through strong word-of-mouth and awards buzz. Critically acclaimed for its performances—especially Colman's portrayal of Anne's volatility—and technical achievements, it holds a 93% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 430 reviews, with praise centered on the acting trio's chemistry and the film's subversion of period drama conventions. At the 91st Academy Awards, The Favourite received ten nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director for Lanthimos, and acting categories for all three leads, ultimately winning Best Actress for Colman; it also secured a record ten British Independent Film Awards.

Synopsis

Plot Overview

Set in early 18th-century amid the , The Favourite depicts the court of Queen Anne, portrayed as frail, ill, and prone to volatile moods. Her intimate friend and confidante, , wields de facto governing power, overseeing political decisions including the protracted conflict with France while attending to the Queen's personal needs. This arrangement maintains a delicate balance of influence, with Sarah leveraging her proximity to Anne to advance Whig policies favoring continued warfare. The narrative pivots upon the arrival of Masham (née Hill), Sarah's impoverished cousin and a disgraced reduced to servitude, who enters the court seeking restoration. Through cunning and opportunism, cultivates the Queen's favor, igniting a fierce rivalry with characterized by personal betrayals, psychological manipulations, and strategic alliances. The ensuing power struggle intertwines domestic intrigue with broader political machinations, as the women navigate loyalty shifts and ambition's perils to sway Anne's temperament-driven decrees on war and .

Development

Script Origins

Deborah Davis, a first-time , began developing the for The Favourite in 1998 after encountering historical accounts of Queen Anne's favoritism toward , and the subsequent rivalry with Abigail Masham, who rose from humble origins to supplant Sarah's influence at court around 1708–1711. Davis's initial draft, written under the working title Balance of Power, drew on primary historical research to emphasize the power struggles within Queen Anne's court, portraying the relationships as driven by ambition and manipulation rather than romantic idealization. The script entered formal development with support from producer Ceci Dempsey and the , but faced delays over nearly two decades due to challenges in securing financing and alignment on tone, remaining in limbo as Davis continued refinements. In 2015, Australian screenwriter Tony McNamara was hired to rewrite Davis's script, shifting its focus toward dark comedy and absurdist elements to highlight the irrationality of human rivalry and court intrigue. McNamara's revisions introduced anachronistic and exaggerated behaviors, deliberately diverging from strict historical fidelity to underscore causal dynamics of power imbalances, such as how personal loyalties erode under competition for favor. This approach prioritized psychological realism in depicting self-interested motivations over sanitized period-drama conventions, with McNamara collaborating closely with director to refine scenes that captured linguistic precision in conveying . Lanthimos, who joined the project through , exerted substantial influence on the final screenplay by insisting on revisions that amplified its stylized tone, including suggestions for staging techniques like wide-angle distortions to evoke distorted perceptions in interpersonal conflicts—elements later realized visually but conceived in script descriptions. The resulting script, finalized as the March 23, 2017, shooting draft, credited Davis and McNamara jointly, reflecting a synthesis of Davis's research-driven foundation with McNamara and Lanthimos's emphasis on unvarnished human behaviors amid political maneuvering. This evolution transformed the material from a more conventional historical narrative into one that exposed the raw mechanics of influence without deference to expected moral framing.

Pre-Production

Development of The Favourite involved securing financing from multiple entities, with Film4 Productions boarding the project in 2013 to co-develop and co-finance alongside the filmmakers. Fox Searchlight Pictures and Waypoint Entertainment later joined as co-financiers, contributing to a production budget of $15 million. These partnerships, formalized around 2015-2017, enabled logistical preparations including location scouting. Location scouting identified in as the primary stand-in for Queen Anne's royal residences, such as , due to its suitable for early 18th-century interiors. This choice shaped the film's aesthetic by providing opulent, historically evocative spaces that blended authenticity with the director's stylized vision. Conceptual preparations balanced historical period details with artistic exaggeration, as director opted for an absurdist tone over strict realism. Key decisions included portraying Queen Anne's documented health afflictions, such as and the loss of 17 children through miscarriages and early deaths, which informed like emotional fragility. Symbolic choices, such as using rabbits to represent Anne's deceased offspring, were devised as metaphorical devices rather than historical facts, emphasizing psychological depth through practical animal props planned in . Budget priorities allocated resources to such practical effects, ensuring the film's thematic constraints prioritized visual and narrative innovation within the $15 million framework.

Production

Casting

Director selected for the role of Queen Anne, citing her unique capacity to embody the character's profound while delivering volatile emotional shifts essential to the portrayal of frailty amid royal ambition. He emphasized that Colman was his sole choice for the part and that the film would not have proceeded without her, positioning her as the central figure anchoring the narrative's exploration of power struggles. Rachel Weisz was cast as Lady Sarah Churchill after Lanthimos offered the role to her following its prior attachment to Kate Winslet; he highlighted Weisz's inherent warmth as key to conveying the character's poised command over courtly influence. Emma Stone, who also served as a , underwent a rigorous audition process for Abigail Hill to verify her command of a period-appropriate English accent, despite her prior collaborations with Lanthimos; the session incorporated unconventional physical tasks, such as simulating labored breathing, to assess adaptability in depicting cunning social ascent. Nicholas Hoult was chosen for Robert Harley, the opportunistic leader, to embody a satirical lens on political maneuvering through manipulative tactics aimed at leveraging court factions for policy gains. The principal cast participated in three weeks of rehearsals prior to , featuring unorthodox physical exercises, trust-building games, and improvisational scenarios to heighten bodily expressiveness and simulate interpersonal power contests without relying on archetypal heroic tropes. Lanthimos integrated movement training and choreographed activities to underscore themes of rivalry and vulnerability, diverging from scripted dialogue to foster organic tensions reflective of historical intrigue.

Filming

Principal photography for The Favourite commenced in March 2017 and concluded in May 2017, with the majority of scenes shot at in , , doubling as , and additional sequences filmed at in . Other locations included the in for select interior shots. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan captured the film predominantly on 35mm stock, relying on natural daylight filtering through windows and candlelight for illumination to evoke the era's dim, atmospheric interiors without supplemental artificial sources. Wide-angle and fisheye lenses were utilized extensively to distort spatial relationships, foregrounding hierarchies and psychological intimacy among characters through exaggerated perspectives and off-kilter framing. Director employed fluid, roving camera movements and extended takes to heighten tension in scenes of rivalry and intrigue, diverging from conventional period drama stasis to underscore the film's themes of power and absurdity. This approach, combined with whip pans and long shots, contributed to the visual rhythm that balanced comedic exaggeration with underlying cruelty.

Design Elements

Production designer Crombie transformed locations like into representations of early 18th-century royal palaces, incorporating a large fabricated facade and secret passages to evoke the confined, labyrinthine nature of Queen Anne's court while maintaining opulence through hand-carved furniture, such as a 14-foot-high bedchamber canopy, and extensive practical lighting from 80,000 candles equipped with wax catchers. Costume designer Sandy Powell crafted garments that adhered to historical silhouettes of the period—wide hoops, structured bodices, and layered petticoats—but subverted accuracy with modern fabrics including laser-cut , vinyl, recycled , and African prints, creating a deliberate anachronistic punk aesthetic that underscores the film's critique of rigid court hierarchies by blending timeless opulence with contemporary irreverence. Key props reinforced thematic subversion, such as the 17 live rabbits housed in Anne's chambers with custom tables, silver bowls, and brushes, symbolizing her historical losses of 17 children through miscarriages, stillbirths, and early deaths, which humanizes the monarch's frailty amid political machinations tied to the . Additional elements like anachronistic blue cake and rudimentary wheelchairs for courtiers further distanced the visuals from sanitized period realism, emphasizing grotesque bodily realities—such as unfiltered depictions of vomiting and —to portray power structures as decaying and absurd rather than idealized.

Music and Sound

The soundtrack of The Favourite features no original score, instead relying on licensed period-appropriate Baroque compositions to evoke the early 18th-century setting while subverting expectations of elegance through contextual irony and tension. Key pieces include George Frideric Handel's Concerto Grosso, Op. 6, No. 7 in B-flat Major and selections from his Water Music, Antonio Vivaldi's concertos, Henry Purcell's Trumpet Sonata in D Major, and works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, selected for their historical resonance with Queen Anne's court. In scenes depicting power struggles, such as ballroom dances, these minuets and allegros are deployed to underscore menace rather than romance, with editing techniques like extended pauses amplifying unease in rivalries. Sound designer Johnnie Burn, working without a traditional composer, blurred the boundaries between diegetic effects and musicality to heighten surveillance and causal intrigue without manipulative sentimentality. Footsteps were captured via close-miking on location at Hatfield House, then amplified in post-production to emphasize spatial awareness and interpersonal plotting, drawing from re-enacted scenes for authenticity. Whispers and ambient tones, such as pitch-bent fireplaces or distilled natural winds shaped into single-note drones, were layered under Baroque cues to suggest lurking threats and unadorned human ambition, prioritizing raw acoustic realism over emotional cues. Burn's team integrated these elements over an 11-month post-production period, starting during editing, using tools like Nuendo for multi-track sessions and weekly Dolby Atmos tests to refine tension buildup empirically. This approach avoided Hollywood gloss, aligning auditory layers with the film's causal depiction of courtly behaviors through subtle, subversive periodicity.

Release

Distribution and Premiere

The film premiered at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on August 30, 2018, where it competed for the Golden Lion and received the Grand Jury Prize. Fox Searchlight Pictures handled distribution in North America, launching a limited release in the United States on November 23, 2018, before expanding to wide release on December 21, 2018. The strategy targeted awards-season positioning by leveraging festival buzz and the director's prior acclaim. Internationally, the film rolled out progressively from January 2019 onward, with releases in markets such as the United Kingdom and Ireland on January 1, 2019. Marketing efforts centered on the ensemble cast—featuring , , and —alongside Yorgos Lanthimos's reputation for stylized narratives, with official trailers from emphasizing courtly power struggles, dark humor, and period authenticity rather than contemporary thematic overlays. Post-theatrical availability included digital release on February 12, 2019, followed by physical formats such as DVD and Blu-ray on March 5, 2019, via Fox Home Entertainment, facilitating broader access beyond initial cinema runs.

Box Office Results

The Favourite earned a worldwide gross of $95,918,706 against a of $15 million. In the United States and Canada, it generated $34,366,783, while international markets contributed $61,551,923. The opened in limited release on November 23, , across four theaters in New York and , taking in $422,410 for the weekend and achieving a per-screen average of $105,000—the highest opening average for any that year. This strong initial performance, timed for the holiday period, benefited from early critical acclaim and awards momentum following its premiere, enabling gradual expansion to wider release. Despite its arthouse style and period setting limiting appeal in some mass-market territories, international earnings were bolstered by solid holds in and select Asian markets, reflecting targeted distributor strategies rather than broad blockbuster competition. Theatrical profitability was evident, with the gross exceeding the budget by over six times before ancillary revenues from and streaming, though detailed post-2019 figures remain proprietary and not publicly aggregated in standard trackers as of 2025.

Reception

Critical Analysis

The Favourite garnered significant critical acclaim, achieving a 93% Tomatometer score on from 430 reviews, with praise centered on the standout performances of as Queen Anne, as Sarah Churchill, and as Abigail Masham, alongside the film's lavish visual aesthetics and sharp satirical commentary on court intrigue. On , it earned a 91/100 score from 56 critics, highlighting its blend of ribald humor, intelligence, and liberation from conventional period drama constraints. Reviewers frequently commended the screenplay's intricate power struggles among the female leads, describing it as a "gleefully nasty" exploration of ambition and betrayal that subverts expectations of historical politeness. Director Yorgos Lanthimos's stylistic choices drew analytical focus, including wide-angle lenses and high-angle shots that underscore emotional isolation and the absurdity of hierarchical gamesmanship, fostering a sense of detachment that amplifies the without sentimentalizing victimhood or power imbalances. Robbie Ryan's natural-light approach and fish-eye distortions further enhanced this, creating off-kilter compositions that mirror the characters' precarious maneuvers rather than imposing moral framings. These techniques contributed to the film's consensus as a visually inventive work, though some outliers faulted the relentless cruelty and dark humor for occasionally straining narrative cohesion. Criticisms, while minority views amid the acclaim, included perceptions of uneven pacing in the escalating rivalries and an unyielding depiction of ambition's destructiveness, which certain reviewers interpreted as eschewing redemptive arcs in favor of applicable across genders. Right-leaning analyses emphasized this realism, arguing the film's refusal to gender-qualify avoids idealized portrayals of female agency, instead revealing universal incentives in zero-sum political environments. Such interpretations contrasted with broader consensus praise for the performances' pitch-perfect execution of scheming without reliance on contemporary ideological lenses.

Awards and Honors

The Favourite received widespread recognition from major film awards bodies, accumulating over 350 nominations and nearly 200 wins across various ceremonies, with a particular emphasis on and technical achievements. The film's success underscored industry voting patterns that often prioritize compelling individual performances and period authenticity over experimental storytelling, as evidenced by the distribution of accolades favoring 's lead role and design elements. At the on February 24, 2019, the film earned 10 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director for , Best Actress for (which she won), Best Supporting Actress for both and , Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, and Best Cinematography. Colman's victory marked a rare upset in the category, reflecting voter appreciation for her nuanced depiction of Queen Anne's vulnerability and volatility. The on February 10, 2019, saw The Favourite secure 12 nominations and 7 wins: Outstanding British Film, Best Leading Actress (Colman), Best Supporting Actress (Weisz), Best (Sandy Powell), Best Production Design (Fiona Crombie), Best Makeup and Hair, and Best Editing (). These BAFTA triumphs highlighted the film's strong appeal to voters, who valued its historical setting and ensemble dynamics.
AwardCategoryRecipientResult
Best ActressWon
BAFTA AwardsBest Costume DesignSandy PowellWon
BAFTA AwardsBest Production DesignFiona CrombieWon
BAFTA AwardsBest Supporting ActressWon
Earlier, at the on September 8, 2018, the film premiered to win the Grand Jury Prize and the awarded to Colman. Additional honors included nominations at the Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture – Musical or , Best in a Musical or Comedy (Colman), and Best , though it won none there. At the European Film Awards on December 7, 2019, it claimed Best Film. Guild awards further affirmed technical prowess, with wins from the Costume Designers Guild and Art Directors Guild, contributing to the tally without notable disputes in voting processes.

Public and Cultural Debates

Audience reactions to The Favourite were sharply divided, with some viewers lauding its depiction of ambitious women navigating power dynamics as a refreshing of historical narratives dominated by male figures, while others condemned it for portraying characters as ruthlessly manipulative and vicious, thereby reinforcing rather than challenging negative about women in . For instance, discussions highlighted the film's appeal to those seeking "edgy female characters" unburdened by redemptive arcs, yet critics in personal blogs argued it exemplified "gut-level anti-feminism" by emphasizing women's capacity for cruelty without broader contextual redemption. Reddit threads echoed this polarization, with users decrying the movie as "awful" for its perceived and moral ambiguity, where power pursuits end in mutual destruction without resolution, leaving viewers feeling "cold and violated" by the unrelenting cynicism. The film's ambiguous ending, featuring a prolonged shot blending Abigail's triumph with Queen Anne's bunnies in a surreal haze, sparked debates over its implications for unchecked female power, interpreted by some as a critique of innate rivalries and cyclical betrayal among women absent male oversight, aligning with conservative perspectives on power's corrupting universality regardless of gender. Others viewed it as Lanthimos's signature bleakness, underscoring human flaws like ambition and resentment without endorsing any ideology, though feminist commentators noted discomfort with its refusal to humanize the protagonists' flaws through redemption, contrasting with expectations for empowering portrayals. Post-release interpretations linked the film to #MeToo-era discussions on female agency and matriarchal power structures, with some audiences framing its sexual and political manipulations as a bold exploration of women wielding influence aggressively, yet counterarguments emphasized the script's development predating the movement's peak—originating from Davis's work in the early —and its focus on timeless human vices like and domination over gendered commentary. This tension revealed biases in reception, where mainstream enthusiasm for "strong women" often overlooked the narrative's impartial indictment of power's dehumanizing effects, prioritizing ideological affirmation over the film's causal realism in depicting rivalry as a fundamental driver of court intrigue.

Historical Context

Real-Life Inspirations

Queen Anne's reign from 1702 to 1714 formed the historical foundation for the film's depiction of court intrigue, centered on the documented rivalry between , and her cousin Abigail Masham for the queen's favor. , appointed Groom of the Stole and in 1702, exerted substantial influence over Anne, promoting Whig interests amid the ongoing , which began in 1701 and strained British resources through persistent land taxes funding military campaigns. Anne's personal affinity for moderate policies clashed with Sarah's Whig advocacy, fostering tensions that intertwined domestic favoritism with parliamentary maneuvers. Abigail Masham's ascent began around when she entered court service under Sarah's recommendation but gradually supplanted her cousin by 1710, gaining Anne's confidence through discreet counsel and family ties via her marriage to Samuel Masham, a . This shift facilitated secret communications between Abigail and Tory leader Robert Harley, enabling schemes to undermine the Whig-dominated Junto ministry, including Harley's orchestration of to war financing and advocacy for peace negotiations with . Henry St. John, , later collaborated in these efforts, leveraging court influence to pivot toward governance, which prioritized reducing the land tax burden—peaking at 4 shillings per pound by —and curbing the war's fiscal drain. These political dynamics were propelled by the favorites' access to Anne, as evidenced in surviving correspondence and Sarah's post-rivalry memoirs, which detail favor shifts tied to policy disputes over taxation and continental commitments. Anne's private grief underscored the era's personal stakes, marked by at least 17 pregnancies between 1683 and 1700, resulting in multiple miscarriages, stillbirths, and infant deaths, with only one child, , surviving infancy before succumbing to on July 30, 1700, at age 11. This amplified the court's factional pressures, as Anne's necessitated reliance on advisors like for early stability, while Abigail's rise aligned with pragmatic pushes for fiscal relief amid war exhaustion. Primary accounts, including letters between and spanning 1680 to 1710, illustrate the erosion of their bond through escalating demands and ideological rifts, culminating in Sarah's dismissal in 1711.

Accuracy Assessments

The film accurately captures the timeline of the central rivalry between , and Abigail Masham, which intensified between approximately 1707 and 1711, culminating in Sarah's dismissal from court in January 1711 after Abigail's ascendance as the queen's confidante. Queen Anne's depicted health decline, including , mobility issues, and episodes resembling , aligns with historical records of her physical frailties from the late 1700s onward, exacerbated by obesity and multiple pregnancies. Basic court dynamics, such as the favorites' influence over appointments and policy—particularly Whig support for continuing the versus emerging preferences for peace—are rooted in fact, though the film simplifies multifaceted parliamentary debates and Marlborough's military role. Significant divergences prioritize dramatic tension over fidelity. The portrayed sexual relationships between Anne and her favorites exaggerate contemporary rumors, which historians attribute primarily to political slander propagated by Sarah after her fall from favor, lacking independent corroboration such as eyewitness accounts or private correspondence beyond affectionate but non-erotic language. Biographer Anne Somerset, drawing on archival letters, rejects romantic interpretations, emphasizing instead the era's intense but platonic patronage bonds driven by political utility rather than scandalous intimacy. Fictional embellishments include Queen Anne's of pet rabbits, symbolizing her 17 lost children but unsupported by evidence of her keeping such animals; rabbits in her bedchamber scenes serve narrative metaphor rather than historical detail. Costumes blend early 18th-century silhouettes with later Regency influences and modern fabrics for visual eccentricity, eschewing period precision—such as authentic panniers or fabrics—to enhance thematic absurdity, as confirmed by Sandy Powell. Cinematographic choices, like fish-eye lenses, introduce 21st-century distortion absent from the era, underscoring director Yorgos Lanthimos's stylistic liberties over realism. Historians consensus, per Somerset and others, views these as intentional deviations amplifying gossip into spectacle, subordinating verifiable politics to interpersonal .

Interpretive Controversies

Some scholars and critics have interpreted The Favourite through a feminist lens, positing it as a subversive depiction of women navigating and undermining patriarchal structures in early 18th-century Britain, with the rivalry between Churchill and Masham highlighting inventive subversions of roles. This reading emphasizes the film's focus on female agency amid limited options, framing the characters' manipulations as a form of resistance against male-dominated politics. Counterarguments, however, contend that the film embodies an anti-feminist critique by portraying women in power as inherently prone to , scheming, and debauched behavior, suggesting such traits render rule inherently unstable. These views highlight the characters' visceral flaws—, farting, and ruthless intrigue—as a test of demands for "edgy" leads, revealing discomfort with depictions that eschew victimhood or tropes in favor of unvarnished . Alternative analyses affirm a -neutral perspective on human , interpreting the power struggles as emblematic of universal ambition and moral decay, unbound by sex, with the film's exposing how proximity to erodes irrespective of the holder's . Debates over the film's queerness center on whether the implied intimacies between Queen Anne, Sarah, and Abigail represent a reclamation of obscured histories or mere dramatic invention rooted in political smears. Proponents of a queer-affirming reading cite the triangle as evidence of real same-sex bonds, drawing on sparse historical whispers to argue for hidden in Anne's court. Yet, contemporary accounts indicate such rumors often served as partisan attacks—deployed by rivals like to discredit the Marlboroughs—lacking empirical corroboration beyond , with Anne's documented pregnancies and marital affections pointing against exclusive . The film's deliberate ambiguity, characteristic of Lanthimos's style, resists normalizing these as verified narratives, instead underscoring relational volatility driven by favoritism rather than identity. Interpretations grounded in causal mechanisms frame the rivalries not as gendered but as evolved competitions for scarce resources—royal favor, influence, and survival—in a zero-sum environment, evidenced by primary sources depicting both Sarah's domineering tactics and Abigail's calculated seductions as proactive bids for dominance. This lens rejects victim-blaming or overlays, attributing outcomes to mutual agency and strategic maneuvering, where personal frailties like Anne's health woes amplified but did not originate the conflicts, aligning with historical records of reciprocal betrayals over policy and prestige. Such readings prioritize observable patterns of self-interested behavior over ideological projections, viewing the film's dynamics as a realistic portrayal of intra-female hierarchies mirroring broader human contests for power.

Legacy

Cinematic Influence

The Favourite (2018) influenced subsequent works through director 's signature stylistic techniques, including wide-angle lenses that distort spatial intimacy and underscore absurd power dynamics, as seen in his later collaborations with actress . In (2023), Lanthimos and cinematographer Robbie Ryan revisited similar visual distortions using limited lenses to evoke vignette effects and expansive absurdity, echoing the film's courtly manipulations. This approach persisted in (2024) and (2025), where Stone reprised roles exploring control and eccentricity, with Bugonia's release on October 24, 2025, marking their fifth joint project. Screenwriter Tony McNamara extended the film's irreverent subversion of period tropes into the series The Great (premiered May 15, 2020), a satirical depiction of Catherine the Great's court intrigue featuring raunchy humor and ahistorical power plays akin to Queen Anne's rivalries. Critics noted its droll tone and structural parallels to The Favourite, with McNamara predating both in conceptualizing contemporary-minded historical figures. The series ran for until 2023, demonstrating sustained interest in such anti-costume-drama formats. Lanthimos's wide-lens cinematography, first prominently adapted for period settings in The Favourite via fisheye and roving shots, has been analyzed as a hallmark influencing arthouse visual storytelling for emotional detachment and spatial unease. Film studies cite the film for redefining period satires by prioritizing acerbic power critiques over fidelity, though no data indicates shifts in box-office performance for comparable $15–20 million-budgeted arthouse period pieces post-2018. The film's Oscar wins, including Best Actress for Olivia Colman on January 27, 2019, highlighted viability of female-led ensembles in subversive historical narratives without reliance on contemporary identity signaling.

Enduring Critiques

Critics have persistently questioned the film's nihilistic undertones, dismissing them as unsubstantiated cynicism that prioritizes stylistic detachment over substantive exploration of human motivation or historical causality. Lanthimos' signature , while visually striking, has been faulted for rendering character actions arbitrarily cruel without grounding in verifiable psychological or societal drivers, leading to analyses that view the narrative as philosophically shallow rather than incisively realist. The substantial historical liberties taken—such as amplifying unverified romantic entanglements and modernizing dialogue and behaviors—have drawn scrutiny for enabling ahistorical impositions of gender essentialism, where 18th-century power dynamics are retrofitted to contemporary identity frameworks lacking empirical support from primary sources like court records or correspondence. Academic discussions highlight how these fabrications "queer" biographical elements, exaggerating female agency in ways that conflate rivalry with essentialized sexual identities unsupported by the era's documented heteronormative norms and political expediency. From conservative viewpoints, the depiction of monarchical court as a vortex of personal degeneracy and unchecked intrigue underscores the perils of absolute power, portraying Queen Anne's reign not as a progressive haven but as a cautionary exemplar of isolation-fueled that erodes institutional legitimacy—contrasting with tendencies in progressive to idealize pre-modern elites. No widespread cultural cancellation has occurred, with the film instead subject to ongoing reevaluations in informal forums emphasizing its anti-utopian realism over sanitized royal narratives. As of 2025, streaming metrics reflect niche endurance, with the film sustaining viewership on platforms like and featuring in retrospective rankings, amid and academic debates contrasting its artistic fabrications against demands for biopic fidelity, where consultants stress evidence-based deviations risk distorting causal historical sequences like the War of the Spanish Succession's policy influences.

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