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The Favourite review – Colman, Weisz and Stone are pitch-perfect

Yorgos Lanthimos’s tragicomedy set in the court of Queen Anne boasts daring performances from its three female stars and lashings of lust, intrigue and deceit

A trio of pitch-perfect performances from Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone drive Yorgos Lanthimos’s spiky period drama – a tragicomic tale of personal and political jealousy and intrigue in 18th-century England. Set in the court of Queen Anne (the last of the Stuart monarchs), it balances foreign wars with home-grown tussles in often uproarious and occasionally alarming fashion. Written by Deborah Davis (whose original script dates back to the late 90s) and Tony McNamara, this boasts razor-sharp dialogue which at times reminded me of Whit Stillman’s deliciously acerbic Jane Austen adaptation Love & Friendship – albeit with more sex and swearing.

Colman is Queen Anne, overweight and depressed, riddled with gout, and plagued by suicidal thoughts. An unconfident ruler, she relies upon the advice of her friend and lover Lady Sarah Churchill (Weisz, with whom Colman co-starred in Lanthimos’s The Lobster). Her bedchamber is filled with rabbits that she calls “the little ones”, and her sore-covered legs are in constant need of attention from the massaging hands of Sarah, who also tends to Anne’s other fleshly needs.

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from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2R0ekMr
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