The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018) (Patreon)

Another film, like Happy as Lazzaro, that I found myself admiring more than liking, although I certainly enjoyed it more from moment to moment. In fact, that's part of the difficulty. Although I certainly wouldn't deny that the screenplay is impeccably written, I felt that Davis and McNamara too often went for the snappy bon mot over character development, which would be forgivable if The Favourite were unabashedly trashy and anachronistic. But Lanthimos' direction, and the trio of lead performances, continually implicate the film in something more ambitious and higher-toned.

And this moves in both directions. The dance sequence -- the most unexpected since Ex Machina -- suggests a more critical distance from the goings-on than the rest of the film allows. This is a moment that implies a "project," much like Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette. But there's little if any follow-through. By contrast, Lanthimos and cinematographer Robbie Ryan's frequent decision to anamorphically distort the royal interiors, as if they were being reflected in a sphere in a Vermeer painting, gave the sense that a higher purpose was at work, a consideration of the practices of 18th century representation and its limits.

This is a fine film, but it really could have been so much better. For one thing, it needed to be about half an hour longer. Character development and plot machinations moved too quickly to really have an emotional impact. This is okay if the objective is pulpy palace intrigue, but Lanthimos had something here that, with the right treatment, could have stood alongside Barry Lyndon. Olivia Colman, in particular, seemed to comprehend what the stakes of The Favourite really were, and made them manifest in every scene. The film itself barely contains her performance, and all concerned should have risen to the occasion.