The Favourite

Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2018 film took twenty years to reach the screen. Deborah Davis gave her first draft to producer Ceci Dempsey in 1998; Lanthimos joined much later and brought in Tony McNamara to rewrite it. Robbie Ryan shot 35mm on a Panavision Millennium XL2, adding an ultra wide 6mm to a set of close focus Primo primes. He describes its distortion as going past the usual fish eye look without being too bendy: wide, but not cartoon. Big halls were sometimes lit by half a dozen candles, the negative pushed a stop or two. The darkness is the film, not a fault in it. Constanza Macras choreographed the court dance, and the moves are deliberately out of period. Queen Anne’s seventeen pregnancies are real; her seventeen rabbits are not, and the historical consultant notes rabbits counted as food or vermin then. The poisoning is invented too. Sarah did threaten to publish Anne’s letters, and did decide against it. Olivia Colman won Actress in a Leading Role. Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz were nominated separately for Actress in a Supporting Role and neither won; ten nominations produced one award. A good fit if you read half a dozen candles and bent wide angle walls as choices. Not for anyone taking the rabbits and the poisoning as history.