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The Favourite

January 13, 2023

For other uses, see The Favorite (disambiguation).

The Favourite is a 2018 period black comedy film co-produced and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, from a screenplay by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara. Set in early 18th century Great Britain, the film's plot examines the relationship between cousins Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz), and Abigail Masham (Emma Stone) as they vie to be court favourite of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman). Principal photography for the British-Irish-American production lasted from March to May 2017 and took place at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire and at Hampton Court Palace.

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) (United Kingdom and Ireland)
Running time
120 minutes[3]
Countries
  • United Kingdom[4]
  • Ireland[4]
  • United States[4]
LanguageEnglish
Budget$15 million[5]
Box office$95.9 million[6]

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 theatrically released in the United States on 23 November 2018 by Fox Searchlight Pictures, and in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 1 January 2019. Produced at a cost of $15 million, the film was a box office success, grossing $95 million worldwide.

The Favourite received widespread critical acclaim, especially for the performances of the three leads and Lanthimos' direction, 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 film one of the top ten films of 2018.

Plot

In 1711, Great Britain is at war with France. Queen Anne is in poor health; she shows little interest in governing, preferring activities such as racing ducks and playing with her 17 rabbits, surrogates for the children she miscarried or who died in infancy. Her confidante, adviser, 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, who as a landowner argues against a doubling of property taxes proposed to fund the war.

Abigail Hill, Sarah's impoverished younger cousin, arrives in search of employment. Abigail's standing has been tainted by her father, who gambled her away in a game of whist. Abigail is forced to do menial work as a scullery maid in the palace. After seeing the Queen's gout, Abigail forages for herbs and applies them to the Queen's inflamed legs. Sarah has Abigail whipped for entering the Queen's bedroom without permission but relents and appoints her Lady of the Bedchamber after realising the herbs have helped the Queen. One night, Abigail witnesses Sarah and the Queen have sex. Harley asks Abigail to spy on Sarah and the Queen, hoping to circumvent Sarah's authority. Abigail refuses Harley's offer, and then tells Sarah about this while implying that she knows about their secret and that it is safe with her, but receives a subtle warning from her in case she cannot be trusted.

With Sarah focused on the war effort, Abigail kindles a friendship with Anne that becomes sexual. Sarah finds out about this and tries to remove Abigail from her position, which Abigail prevents by earning pity from the Queen. Knowing she earned a powerful enemy and desperate to be a lady again, she reconsiders Harley's offer. Sarah becomes aware of Abigail's machinations and after flaunting her deeper friendship with the Queen, threatens to throw her back to the streets. Abigail drugs Sarah's tea, causing her to fall off her horse and be dragged unconscious on the ground. Sarah awakens in a brothel, battered from the fall. Anne, thinking Sarah has abandoned her to make her jealous, takes Abigail into her favour and allows her to marry Colonel Masham, reinstating Abigail's noble standing as a Baroness, with the help of Harley. Abigail then helps Harley's influence on the Queen's decision about the war.

When Sarah returns to court, Abigail offers her a truce but is instead rejected and slapped. Sarah then issues an ultimatum to Queen Anne: change her stance on the war and send Abigail away or Sarah will disclose her correspondence with Anne that details their sexual relationship. She tells Anne that Abigail does not love her and merely flatters her. Sarah, remorseful, burns the letters but Anne nevertheless sends her away from court. Godolphin convinces Anne to mend her relationship with Sarah if the latter sends a letter, then persuades Sarah to send one. Anne eagerly awaits for Sarah's letter, while Sarah attempts to express what she feels in writing. When Abigail, who has been promoted to Keeper of the Privy Purse, presents what she claims is evidence Sarah had been embezzling money, Anne does not believe her. Sarah's letter finally arrives but is intercepted by Abigail who tearfully 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 from Britain.

With Sarah gone and her position secure, Abigail begins to neglect and ignore Anne while indulging in court society and openly having affairs. One day, while lounging in the Queen's chamber, Abigail abuses one of Anne's rabbits. Anne, now very sick, is awakened by the animal's distressed cry and sees what Abigail is doing. Anne forces herself out of bed and angrily orders Abigail to kneel and massage her leg. She gradually pulls Abigail's hair and bears down on her head as Abigail winces and continues to begrudgingly massage her.

Cast

Production

Writing

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.[7] Dempsey has said she was "haunted" by "the passion, the survival instincts of these women, the manipulations and what they did to survive."[8]

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.[7]

Pre-production

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."[9]

Lanthimos began working closely with screenwriter Tony McNamara on "freshening up" the script, after reading McNamara's pilot script for The Great.[10] 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.[11]

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."[9]

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",[12] and that Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, and Lee Magiday would produce under their Scarlet Films and Element Pictures banners, respectively.[13]

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.[14]

Casting

Casting for The Favourite began in 2014 when Lanthimos contacted Olivia Colman.[8] 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.[13] By October 2015, Rachel Weisz had replaced Winslet.[15] The Favourite is the second collaboration between Lanthimos, Colman, and Weisz, both actors having appeared in Lanthimos' The Lobster (2015).[16] In February 2017, Nicholas Hoult joined the cast of the film, followed by Joe Alwyn in March 2017.[17][18] On 8 August 2018, Mark Gatiss, James Smith, and Jenny Rainsford were announced as members of the cast.[19]

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.[20][21] Stone auditioned after asking her agent to contact Lanthimos,[22] 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".[23]

Colman found playing Anne "a joy because she sort of feels everything."[9] 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."[9] 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.[24] 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."[25]

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[26]

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".[27] 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."[27]

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.[28] 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."[29] Stone said Lanthimos wanted to see "how much we could sense each other without seeing each other",[5] and Colman said that "He had us do all sorts of things that keep you from thinking about what your lines mean".[28] 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

 
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.[30] Principal photography began in March 2017 at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire.[31][32] Regarding his choice of location, Lanthimos said: "from the beginning, I had this image of these lonely characters in [a] huge space".[33] Scenes that show Anne in "Parliament" were filmed in the Convocation House and Divinity School at Oxford's Bodleian Library.[34] After 45 days of filming,[33] production wrapped in May.[12]

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.[35]

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.[35]

Set design

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."[36] 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."[36] 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."[37]

Costume design

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."[38] 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.[38]

Although unintentional, Powell drew inspiration for Sarah's contrasting, feminine gowns and her masculine recreational attire from her earlier designs for Tilda Swinton's 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."[38]

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.[38]

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."[38]

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of The Favourite consists mostly of baroque music, including pieces by W. F. and J. S. Bach, Handel, Purcell, and Vivaldi, but there are also pieces by later classical composers, like Schumann and Schubert,[39] 20th-century composers Olivier Messiaen and Luc Ferrari, and the contemporary British composer Anna Meredith.[40] 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.[41]

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"[42] and "used very specific EQ frequencies to shape [atmospheric sound] like score".[42]

Release

In May 2017, the film's distribution rights were acquired by Fox Searchlight Pictures.[12] It had its world premiere at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on 30 August 2018,[43][44] was screened the film at the BFI London Film Festival[19] and the Telluride Film Festival,[45][46] and was the opening-night film at the New York Film Festival.[47] The Favourite was given a limited theatrical release in the United States on 23 November 2018,[48][49][50] and was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 1 January 2019.[51][52]

The film was released on Digital HD on 12 February 2019, and on Blu-ray and DVD on 5 March.[53]

Reception

Box office

The Favourite grossed $34.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $61.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of $96 million.[6] 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.[54] The film made $1.1 million from 34 theaters its second weekend (a per-venue average of $32,500),[55] $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.[56]

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.[57][58] 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.[59]

Critical response

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

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93 % based on 425 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."[60] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 91 out of 100, based on 53 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[61] Audiences polled by PostTrak gave the film 2.5 out of 5 stars, with 37% saying they would definitely recommend it.[62]

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."[63][64] 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.[65]

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".[66] 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".[67]

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".[68] 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".[69]

Accolades

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.[70] 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,[71] 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.[72][73]

Historical accuracy

 
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."[74] 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.[75]

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".[65]

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,[76][74] such as Abigail poisoning Sarah.[74] 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.[77][78] 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.[79] Alternately, it has been speculated that Anne's health problems were severe enough that she may have had little sex drive.[74]

Queen Anne was close to her husband Prince George, Duke of Cumberland, but he was not portrayed in the film, though he lived until October 1708 and was therefore alive for much of the time covered.[76] Anne's loss of children is accurate, but she did not keep rabbits, which at that time were considered food or pests.[80]

See also

References

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January 13, 2023
favourite, other, uses, favorite, disambiguation, 2018, period, black, comedy, film, produced, directed, yorgos, lanthimos, from, screenplay, deborah, davis, tony, mcnamara, early, 18th, century, great, britain, film, plot, examines, relationship, between, cou. For other uses see The Favorite disambiguation The Favourite is a 2018 period black comedy film co produced and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos from a screenplay by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara Set in early 18th century Great Britain the film s plot examines the relationship between cousins Sarah Churchill Duchess of Marlborough Rachel Weisz and Abigail Masham Emma Stone as they vie to be court favourite of Queen Anne Olivia Colman Principal photography for the British Irish American production lasted from March to May 2017 and took place at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire and at Hampton Court Palace The FavouriteUK theatrical release posterDirected byYorgos LanthimosWritten byDeborah Davis Tony McNamaraProduced byCeci Dempsey Ed Guiney Lee Magiday Yorgos LanthimosStarringOlivia Colman Emma Stone Rachel WeiszCinematographyRobbie RyanEdited byYorgos MavropsaridisProductioncompaniesScarlet Films 1 Element Pictures 1 Arcana 1 Film4 Productions 1 Waypoint Entertainment 1 Distributed byFox Searchlight Pictures 1 Release dates30 August 2018 2018 08 30 Venice 2 23 November 2018 2018 11 23 United States 1 January 2019 2019 01 01 United Kingdom and Ireland Running time120 minutes 3 CountriesUnited Kingdom 4 Ireland 4 United States 4 LanguageEnglishBudget 15 million 5 Box office 95 9 million 6 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 theatrically released in the United States on 23 November 2018 by Fox Searchlight Pictures and in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 1 January 2019 Produced at a cost of 15 million the film was a box office success grossing 95 million worldwide The Favourite received widespread critical acclaim especially for the performances of the three leads and Lanthimos direction 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 film one of the top ten films of 2018 Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Production 3 1 Writing 3 2 Pre production 3 3 Casting 3 4 Filming 3 5 Set design 3 6 Costume design 3 7 Soundtrack 4 Release 5 Reception 5 1 Box office 5 2 Critical response 5 3 Accolades 6 Historical accuracy 7 See also 8 References 9 External linksPlot EditIn 1711 Great Britain is at war with France Queen Anne is in poor health she shows little interest in governing preferring activities such as racing ducks and playing with her 17 rabbits surrogates for the children she miscarried or who died in infancy Her confidante adviser 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 who as a landowner argues against a doubling of property taxes proposed to fund the war Abigail Hill Sarah s impoverished younger cousin arrives in search of employment Abigail s standing has been tainted by her father who gambled her away in a game of whist Abigail is forced to do menial work as a scullery maid in the palace After seeing the Queen s gout Abigail forages for herbs and applies them to the Queen s inflamed legs Sarah has Abigail whipped for entering the Queen s bedroom without permission but relents and appoints her Lady of the Bedchamber after realising the herbs have helped the Queen One night Abigail witnesses Sarah and the Queen have sex Harley asks Abigail to spy on Sarah and the Queen hoping to circumvent Sarah s authority Abigail refuses Harley s offer and then tells Sarah about this while implying that she knows about their secret and that it is safe with her but receives a subtle warning from her in case she cannot be trusted With Sarah focused on the war effort Abigail kindles a friendship with Anne that becomes sexual Sarah finds out about this and tries to remove Abigail from her position which Abigail prevents by earning pity from the Queen Knowing she earned a powerful enemy and desperate to be a lady again she reconsiders Harley s offer Sarah becomes aware of Abigail s machinations and after flaunting her deeper friendship with the Queen threatens to throw her back to the streets Abigail drugs Sarah s tea causing her to fall off her horse and be dragged unconscious on the ground Sarah awakens in a brothel battered from the fall Anne thinking Sarah has abandoned her to make her jealous takes Abigail into her favour and allows her to marry Colonel Masham reinstating Abigail s noble standing as a Baroness with the help of Harley Abigail then helps Harley s influence on the Queen s decision about the war When Sarah returns to court Abigail offers her a truce but is instead rejected and slapped Sarah then issues an ultimatum to Queen Anne change her stance on the war and send Abigail away or Sarah will disclose her correspondence with Anne that details their sexual relationship She tells Anne that Abigail does not love her and merely flatters her Sarah remorseful burns the letters but Anne nevertheless sends her away from court Godolphin convinces Anne to mend her relationship with Sarah if the latter sends a letter then persuades Sarah to send one Anne eagerly awaits for Sarah s letter while Sarah attempts to express what she feels in writing When Abigail who has been promoted to Keeper of the Privy Purse presents what she claims is evidence Sarah had been embezzling money Anne does not believe her Sarah s letter finally arrives but is intercepted by Abigail who tearfully 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 from Britain With Sarah gone and her position secure Abigail begins to neglect and ignore Anne while indulging in court society and openly having affairs One day while lounging in the Queen s chamber Abigail abuses one of Anne s rabbits Anne now very sick is awakened by the animal s distressed cry and sees what Abigail is doing Anne forces herself out of bed and angrily orders Abigail to kneel and massage her leg She gradually pulls Abigail s hair and bears down on her head as Abigail winces and continues to begrudgingly massage her Cast EditOlivia Colman as Queen Anne Emma Stone as Abigail Hill later Abigail Masham Baroness Masham Rachel Weisz as Lady Sarah Churchill Duchess of Marlborough Nicholas Hoult as Robert Harley 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer Joe Alwyn as Samuel Masham 1st Baron Masham James Smith as Sidney Godolphin 1st Earl of Godolphin Mark Gatiss as John Churchill 1st Duke of Marlborough Jenny Rainsford as Mae Jennifer White as Mrs Meg Lilly Rose Stevens as SallyProduction EditWriting 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 7 Dempsey has said she was haunted by the passion the survival instincts of these women the manipulations and what they did to survive 8 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 7 Pre production Edit 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 9 Lanthimos began working closely with screenwriter Tony McNamara on freshening up the script after reading McNamara s pilot script for The Great 10 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 11 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 9 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 12 and that Ceci Dempsey Ed Guiney and Lee Magiday would produce under their Scarlet Films and Element Pictures banners respectively 13 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 14 Casting Edit Casting for The Favourite began in 2014 when Lanthimos contacted Olivia Colman 8 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 13 By October 2015 Rachel Weisz had replaced Winslet 15 The Favourite is the second collaboration between Lanthimos Colman and Weisz both actors having appeared in Lanthimos The Lobster 2015 16 In February 2017 Nicholas Hoult joined the cast of the film followed by Joe Alwyn in March 2017 17 18 On 8 August 2018 Mark Gatiss James Smith and Jenny Rainsford were announced as members of the cast 19 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 20 21 Stone auditioned after asking her agent to contact Lanthimos 22 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 23 Colman found playing Anne a joy because she sort of feels everything 9 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 9 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 24 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 25 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 26 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 27 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 27 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 28 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 29 Stone said Lanthimos wanted to see how much we could sense each other without seeing each other 5 and Colman said that He had us do all sorts of things that keep you from thinking about what your lines mean 28 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 30 Principal photography began in March 2017 at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire 31 32 Regarding his choice of location Lanthimos said from the beginning I had this image of these lonely characters in a huge space 33 Scenes that show Anne in Parliament were filmed in the Convocation House and Divinity School at Oxford s Bodleian Library 34 After 45 days of filming 33 production wrapped in May 12 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 35 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 35 Set design Edit 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 36 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 36 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 37 Costume design Edit 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 38 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 38 Although unintentional Powell drew inspiration for Sarah s contrasting feminine gowns and her masculine recreational attire from her earlier designs for Tilda Swinton s 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 38 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 38 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 38 Soundtrack Edit The soundtrack of The Favourite consists mostly of baroque music including pieces by W F and J S Bach Handel Purcell and Vivaldi but there are also pieces by later classical composers like Schumann and Schubert 39 20th century composers Olivier Messiaen and Luc Ferrari and the contemporary British composer Anna Meredith 40 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 41 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 42 and used very specific EQ frequencies to shape atmospheric sound like score 42 Release EditIn May 2017 the film s distribution rights were acquired by Fox Searchlight Pictures 12 It had its world premiere at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on 30 August 2018 43 44 was screened the film at the BFI London Film Festival 19 and the Telluride Film Festival 45 46 and was the opening night film at the New York Film Festival 47 The Favourite was given a limited theatrical release in the United States on 23 November 2018 48 49 50 and was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 1 January 2019 51 52 The film was released on Digital HD on 12 February 2019 and on Blu ray and DVD on 5 March 53 Reception EditBox office Edit The Favourite grossed 34 4 million in the United States and Canada and 61 6 million in other territories for a worldwide gross of 96 million 6 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 54 The film made 1 1 million from 34 theaters its second weekend a per venue average of 32 500 55 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 56 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 57 58 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 59 Critical response Edit The performances of left to right Olivia Colman Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone garnered widespread critical acclaim with the first winning the Academy Award for Best Actress and the latter two both being nominated for Best Supporting Actress On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 93 based on 425 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 60 On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 91 out of 100 based on 53 critics indicating universal acclaim 61 Audiences polled by PostTrak gave the film 2 5 out of 5 stars with 37 saying they would definitely recommend it 62 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 63 64 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 65 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 66 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 67 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 68 The film was ranked number 35 in Vulture s list of over 5 200 films of the 2010s with Angelica Jade Bastien praising the script costumes directing and performances which work in concert to create a film of piercing magnitude 69 Accolades Edit 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 70 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 71 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 72 73 Historical accuracy Edit 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 74 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 75 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 65 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 76 74 such as Abigail poisoning Sarah 74 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 77 78 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 79 Alternately it has been speculated that Anne s health problems were severe enough that she may have had little sex drive 74 Queen Anne was close to her husband Prince George Duke of Cumberland but he was not portrayed in the film though he lived until October 1708 and was therefore alive for much of the time covered 76 Anne s loss of children is accurate but she did not keep rabbits which at that time were considered food or pests 80 See also EditThe Glass of Water Eugene Scribe s 1840 French stage comedy about Queen Anne and Sarah Churchill Viceroy Sarah Norman Ginsbury s 1935 play about Sarah Churchill and Queen Anne which was adaptated by Ethel Borden and Mary Cass Canfield as Anne of England in 1941References Edit a b c d e f Film releases Variety Insight Archived from the original on 21 October 2018 Retrieved 12 July 2018 The Favourite Film Review Venice Film Festival 2018 Filmoria Archived from the original on 18 September 2018 Retrieved 18 September 2018 The Favourite Venice International Film Festival 2018 16 July 2018 Archived from the original on 25 July 2018 Retrieved 25 July 2018 a b c The Favourite 2018 AllMovie Archived from the original on 13 July 2018 Retrieved 12 July 2018 a b c d e f g h i Siegel Tatiana 14 November 2018 The Favourite Blows Up Gender Politics With the Year s Most Outrageous Love Triangle The Hollywood Reporter Archived from the original on 14 November 2018 Retrieved 14 November 2018 a b The Favourite 2018 Box Office Mojo Archived from the original on 2 February 2019 Retrieved 12 April 2019 a b Tangcay Jazz 5 November 2018 Deborah Davis Talks To Awards Daily About The Favourite s Twenty Year Journey To The Big Screen Awards Daily Archived from the original on 19 November 2018 Retrieved 18 November 2018 a b Schaffstall Katherine 22 February 2019 Oscars 10 Things to Know About Best Picture Nominee The Favourite The Hollywood Reporter Archived from the original on 21 April 2021 Retrieved 9 March 2019 a b c d Tartaglione Nancy 30 August 2018 Olivia Colman On The Favourite It Was Awfully Fun Having Sex With Emma Stone Venice Deadline Hollywood Archived from the original on 3 September 2018 Retrieved 3 September 2018 Utichi Joe 13 February 2019 How Tony McNamara s Hulu Bound The Great Landed Him The Favourite And An Oscar Nomination Deadline Hollywood Archived from the original on 23 May 2020 Retrieved 17 May 2020 Kohn Eric 3 September 2018 Yorgos Lanthimos on the Lesbian Love Triangle of The Favourite I Didn t Want This to Become an Issue IndieWire Archived from the original on 3 September 2018 Retrieved 3 September 2018 a b c Dry Jude 15 May 2017 Yorgos Lanthimos Wraps Period Piece The Favourite Official Synopsis Hints At Royal Centric Lesbian Love Triangle IndieWire Archived from the original on 21 July 2018 Retrieved 27 July 2018 a b Jafaar Ali 24 September 2015 Emma Stone amp Olivia Colman In Talks To Board Yorgos Lanthimos The Favourite Deadline Hollywood Archived from the original on 17 April 2017 Retrieved 23 March 2017 McVey Ciara 7 November 2018 Ceci Dempsey on Yorgos Lanthimos Particular Vision for The Favourite The Hollywood Reporter Archived from the original on 19 November 2018 Retrieved 18 November 2018 Jafaar Ali 15 October 2015 Rachel Weisz In Talks To Reunite With Yorgos Lanthimos In The Favourite Deadline Hollywood Archived from the original on 20 April 2017 Retrieved 23 March 2017 Ramachandran Naman 31 March 2014 Yorgos Lanthimos commences The Lobster shoot Cineuropa Archived from the original on 19 April 2018 Retrieved 11 May 2014 Busch Anita 28 February 2017 Nicholas Hoult Joins Emma Stone And Rachel Weisz In The Favourite Deadline Hollywood Archived from the original on 24 March 2017 Retrieved 23 March 2017 Ford Rebecca 3 March 2017 Billy Lynn Star Joe Alwyn Joins Emma Stone in The Favourite Exclusive The Hollywood Reporter Archived from the original on 4 March 2017 Retrieved 23 March 2017 a b Chu Henry 8 August 2018 Yorgos Lanthimos The Favourite to Be London Film Festival Centerpiece Variety Archived from the original on 9 August 2018 Retrieved 8 August 2018 Ryan Patrick 23 November 2018 Rachel Weisz doesn t care about the royals but loved playing one in The Favourite USA Today Archived from the original on 3 January 2019 Retrieved 2 January 2019 Cashin Rory Yorgos Lanthimos discusses the very different original cast for The Favourite JOE Archived from the original on 3 January 2019 Retrieved 2 January 2019 Variety magazine Interview of Emma Stone with Timothy Shalament 2018 4 December 2018 Archived from the original on 6 March 2019 Retrieved 5 March 2019 Guerrasio Jason 20 November 2018 Oscar winner Emma Stone explains why she had to audition for her new movie but didn t find it insulting Business Insider Australia Archived from the original on 23 January 2019 Retrieved 23 January 2019 Erbland Kate 6 June 2017 Rachel Weisz Says Yorgos Lanthimos The Favourite Is Like a Funnier Sex Driven All About Eve IndieWire Archived from the original on 27 July 2018 Retrieved 27 July 2018 Galloway Stephen 2 September 2018 Telluride Emma Stone Reveals Her Acting Breaking Points The Hollywood Reporter Archived from the original on 4 September 2018 Retrieved 3 September 2018 Rothkopf Joshua 28 September 2018 The Favourite TimeOut Archived from the original on 19 November 2018 Retrieved 19 November 2018 a b Gibson Cristina 29 September 2018 The Favourite Female Led Film Resonates During MeToo and Times Up Variety Archived from the original on 20 November 2018 Retrieved 19 November 2018 a b Kleeman Alexandra 21 November 2018 Yorgos Lanthimos s Polarizing Visions The New York Times Archived from the original on 23 January 2019 Retrieved 23 January 2019 Handler Rachel 23 November 2018 Rachel Weisz When Women Are Together There s a Lot of Freedom www vulture com Archived from the original on 23 January 2019 Retrieved 23 January 2019 Lodderhose Diana 11 May 2016 Cannes Colin Farrell Reunites With Yorgos Lanthimos for The Killing of a Sacred Deer EXCLUSIVE Variety Archived from the original on 7 March 2019 Retrieved 26 August 2016 Daniels Nia 10 January 2017 Emma Stone to film The Favourite in UK The Knowledge Bulletin Archived from the original on 24 March 2017 Retrieved 23 March 2017 Kroll Justin 20 March 2017 Colin Farrell to Star as Oliver North in Iran Contra Series for Amazon EXCLUSIVE Variety Archived from the original on 4 November 2017 Retrieved 23 March 2017 a b DP Robbie Ryan BSC ISC combined 35mm film with wide angled lensing and a fluid camera to depict the courtly capers in The Favourite www kodak com 20 November 2018 Archived from the original on 24 June 2022 Retrieved 24 November 2022 Bodleian Library Filming amp Photography Bodleian Library Oxford University Archived from the original on 1 February 2021 Retrieved 30 January 2021 a b Grobar Matt 6 November 2018 The Favourite DP Robbie Ryan Brings Fisheye Lenses amp Fluid Roving Camera To Yorgos Lanthimos Madcap Period Piece Deadline Hollywood Archived from the original on 19 November 2018 Retrieved 18 November 2018 a b Smith Shona 3 September 2018 Yorgos Lanthimos s Venice Film Festival crowd pleaser The Favourite filmed almost exclusively at Hatfield House Hertfordshire The Location Guide Archived from the original on 23 January 2019 Retrieved 23 January 2019 Smith Shona 3 September 2018 Yorgos Lanthimos s Venice Film Festival crowd pleaser The Favourite filmed almost exclusively at Hatfield House Hertfordshire The Location Guide Archived from the original on 3 September 2018 Retrieved 3 September 2018 a b c d e Nolfi Joey 9 November 2018 How The Favourite costumes added renegade punk edge to Queen Anne s court Entertainment Weekly Archived from the original on 4 December 2018 Retrieved 23 January 2019 Rooney David 30 August 2018 The Favourite Film Review The Hollywood Reporter Archived from the original on 13 October 2018 Retrieved 12 October 2018 The Favourite soundtrack trailer music tracklisting and credits Classic FM Archived from the original on 8 June 2019 Retrieved 3 May 2020 Shaw Roberts Maddy 25 January 2019 The Favourite soundtrack trailer music tracklisting and credits FM FM Archived from the original on 8 June 2019 Retrieved 19 November 2019 a b Interview Johnnie Burn on Creating the Sound for The Favourite Archived from the original on 23 January 2019 Retrieved 23 January 2019 Barbera Alberto AlbertoBarbera2 8 August 2018 Giovedi 30 agosto Tweet Retrieved 8 August 2018 via Twitter Tartaglione Nancy 25 July 2018 Venice Film Festival Lineup Welles Coen Brothers Cuaron Greengrass More Live Deadline Hollywood Archived from the original on 21 April 2019 Retrieved 25 July 2018 Tapley Kristopher 30 August 2018 First Man Front Runner and Roma Among 2018 Telluride Film Festival Selections Variety Archived from the original on 30 August 2018 Retrieved 30 August 2018 45th Telluride Film Festival Program Guide PDF Telluride Film Festival Archived PDF from the original on 12 October 2018 Retrieved 30 August 2018 Fleming Mike Jr 23 July 2018 The Favourite To Open 56th New York Film Festival Deadline Hollywood Archived from the original on 24 July 2018 Retrieved 23 July 2018 Hayes Britt 20 April 2018 Yorgos Lanthimos The Favourite Sets Awards Season Release ScreenCrush Archived from the original on 21 April 2018 Retrieved 20 April 2018 Anderson Ariston 25 July 2018 Venice to Kick Off Awards Season With New Films From Coen Brothers Luca Guadagnino and Alfonso Cuaron The Hollywood Reporter Archived from the original on 25 July 2018 Retrieved 25 July 2018 Vivarelli Nick 25 July 2018 Venice Film Festival Lineup Heavy on Award Hopefuls Netflix and Star Power Variety Archived from the original on 22 March 2019 Retrieved 25 July 2018 Mary Poppins Returns is Christmas winner at UK box office The Guardian 2 January 2019 Archived from the original on 2 January 2019 Retrieved 2 January 2019 The Favourite trailer Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone go head to head as love rivals in Olivia Colman s bawdy Queen Anne drama The Telegraph 4 September 2018 Archived from the original on 9 September 2018 Retrieved 17 December 2018 The Favourite 2018 DVDsReleaseDates com 5 March 2019 Archived from the original on 29 March 2019 Retrieved 15 March 2019 D Alessandro Anthony 25 November 2018 Ralph Scoring 2nd Best Thanksgiving Debut With 84M Creed II 55M Live Action Champ Robin Hood Goes Wrong At 14M Deadline Hollywood Archived from the original on 25 November 2018 Retrieved 25 November 2018 D Alessandro Anthony 2 December 2018 Ralph Breaking 25M 2nd Weekend Grinch Steals 203M Hannah Grace 6M In Slow Post Thanksgiving Period Sunday Update Deadline Hollywood Archived from the original on 3 December 2018 Retrieved 2 December 2018 D Alessandro Anthony 9 December 2018 Ralph Keeps No 1 Away From Greedy Grinch For Third Weekend In A Row With 16M Sunday Update Deadline Hollywood Archived from the original on 8 December 2018 Retrieved 9 December 2018 D Alessandro Anthony 16 December 2018 Spider Verse Raises 35M As The Mule Kicks Up 17M In Pre Christmas Period But Mortal Engines Breaks Down With 7M Deadline Hollywood Archived from the original on 15 December 2018 Retrieved 17 December 2018 Brooks Brian 30 December 2018 On The Basis of Sex Best Of Holiday Weekend Start for Newcomers Beale Street Surges Specialty Box Office Deadline Hollywood Archived from the original on 30 December 2018 Retrieved 30 December 2018 D Alessandro Anthony 27 January 2018 Glass Leads Again At Weekend B O But Only A Handful Of Oscar Best Picture Noms Will See Boost Deadline Hollywood Archived from the original on 28 January 2019 Retrieved 2 February 2019 The Favourite 2018 Rotten Tomatoes Fandango Archived from the original on 17 May 2019 Retrieved 29 November 2022 The Favourite Reviews Metacritic Archived from the original on 27 December 2018 Retrieved 31 December 2018 D Alessandro Anthony 29 December 2018 Aquaman Sailing To 51M 2nd Weekend 188M Cume Pacing Ahead Of Doctor Strange amp Guardians Of The Galaxy Deadline Hollywood Archived from the original on 31 December 2018 Retrieved 29 December 2018 Travers Peter 20 November 2018 The Favourite Movie Review Welcome to All About Eve in Corsets Rolling Stone Archived from the original on 28 December 2018 Retrieved 2 January 2019 Grierson Tim 19 November 2018 Olivia Colman All Hail The Favourite Queen Rolling Stone Archived from the original on 1 December 2018 Retrieved 3 December 2018 a b Anthony Lane 26 November 2018 Glamour Wit and Cunning in The Favourite Yorgos Lanthimos relishes the game of historical reconstruction in a tale of usurpation that borders on a romp The New Yorker Archived from the original on 15 December 2018 Retrieved 15 December 2018 Nashawaty Chris 30 November 2018 Review of The Favourite Entertainment Weekly p 37 Sims David 23 November 2018 The Favourite Is a Deliciously Nasty Satire of Royal Court Intrigue The Atlantic Archived from the original on 28 February 2019 Retrieved 27 February 2019 Entertainment Weekly Leah Greenblatt 2018 Year End Special issue Page 32 Edelstein David Willmore Alison Ebiri Bilge Bastien Angelica Jade 11 December 2019 Every Movie of the 2010s Ranked Vulture Collateral Awards Of The 75th Venice Film Festival Venice Biennale 7 September 2018 Archived from the original on 8 September 2018 Retrieved 8 September 2018 Oscar Winners 2019 The Complete List Variety 24 February 2019 Archived from the original on 15 January 2021 Retrieved 24 February 2019 AFI Awards 2018 American Film Institute 4 December 2018 Archived from the original on 8 December 2018 Retrieved 5 December 2018 Thompson Anne 4 December 2018 AFI Awards Top 10 Films and TV of 2018 Plus Special Award for Roma IndieWire Archived from the original on 5 December 2018 Retrieved 5 December 2018 a b c d Schwartz Dana 3 December 2018 How historically accurate is The Favourite Entertainment Weekly Archived from the original on 26 December 2018 Retrieved 31 December 2018 Lewis Hilary 3 October 2018 N Y Film Fest The Favourite Team on Historical Research Behind British Period Film The Hollywood Reporter Archived from the original on 26 December 2018 Retrieved 31 December 2018 a b Jones Nate 27 November 2018 Everything You Need to Know About the 18th Century World of The Favourite Vulture com Archived from the original on 31 December 2018 Retrieved 31 December 2018 Silman Anna 3 December 2018 The Real Sex Lives of Historical Queens thecut com Archived from the original on 26 December 2018 Retrieved 31 December 2018 Cills Hazel 27 November 2018 Dissecting the Real Romantic Rumors Behind The Favourite With a Queen Anne Biographer Jezebel com Archived from the original on 28 November 2018 Retrieved 31 December 2018 Davies Wilder 7 December 2018 Entertainment Movies The True Story Behind The Favourite Time Archived from the original on 13 January 2019 Retrieved 8 January 2019 The Favourite the real history behind the new Queen Anne film History Extra 27 February 2019 Archived from the original on 15 January 2019 Retrieved 14 January 2019 External links Edit Wikiquote has quotations related to The Favourite Official website The Favourite at IMDb The Favourite at Rotten Tomatoes Retrieved from https en 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