The Favourite (2018, Yorgos Lanthimos) (Patreon)

Was kinda startled to discover afterward how historically accurate this is in its broad strokes, rather as if Valmont, Merteuil and Tourvel had been real people. Except that nobody's remotely pure or innocent here, least of all Emma Stone's initially sympathetic schemer. Plus, of course, all three legs of this triangle are gams, with men consigned to supporting roles and generally depicted as ineffectual, easily manipulated clods—a refreshing change of pace for period cruelty. I'm a sucker for films in which everyone is horrible yet the balance of power, and the viewer's corresponding sense of tentative allegiance, keeps unexpectedly shifting; to see that tricky tightrope walk grafted onto what's basically Chapter 10 ("Passions Between Women") of Anne Somerset's Queen Anne biography can't help but impress. Might have wished for slightly wittier dialogue here and there (O! for a Stillman polish), and a few flourishes are too self-consciously acid for my taste. (Can't for the life of me remember where I've seen the jerking-a-dude-off-while-staring-dispassionately-into-the-distance-and-delivering-an-unrelated-monologue bit before, but I thought it was overkill then, too.) For the most part, though, the script and the cast are strong enough to survive Lanthimos' inexplicable, seemingly random use of wide-angle lenses, which at best serves the same mildly irritating function as do the fully justified margins in the closing credits. Just because it's your first director-for-hire job doesn't mean you need to plant a distracting flag.