The Favourite is a 2018 satirical absurdist film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, and written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara. A co-production between Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, it stars Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz. Set in early 18th-century Great Britain, the period film examines the relationship between cousins Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, and Abigail Hill, who will become Baroness Masham as the action progresses, as they vie to be court favourite of Anne, Queen of Great Britain.
Principal photography took place at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire and at Hampton Court Palace, lasting from March to May 2017. 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 released theatrically in the United States on 23 November 2018 by Fox Searchlight Pictures, and in Ireland and the United Kingdom on 1 January 2019. The film was a box office success, grossing $96 million worldwide on a $15 million budget.
The Favourite received widespread critical acclaim, with particular praise drawn to Lanthimos's direction, the screenplay and performances of Colman, Weisz and Stone, 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 Favourite one of the top ten films of 2018 and since its release, it has been assessed as one of the best films of the 21st century.
Plot
In 1705, England is at war with France. Queen Anne is in poor health; she shows little interest in governing, preferring activities such as playing with her 17 rabbits, surrogates for the children she miscarried or who died in infancy. Her confidante, advisor, 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.
Abigail Hill, Sarah's impoverished younger cousin, arrives in search of employment. Her standing has been tainted by her father, who gambled her away in a game of whist. She is forced to do menial work as a scullery maid in the palace.
After seeing Queen Anne's gout, Abigail forages herbs for her. Sarah has Abigail whipped for entering the Queen's bedroom without permission but appoints her Lady of the Bedchamber after realising the herbs have helped the Queen. One night, Abigail witnesses Sarah and the Queen having sex. Harley asks Abigail to spy on them both, hoping to circumvent Sarah's authority. Abigail refuses and tells Sarah, implying that she knows about their secret.
Abigail kindles a friendship with Anne that becomes sexual. Sarah finds out and unsuccessfully tries to remove her. Knowing she has gained a powerful enemy and desperate to be a lady again, Abigail reconsiders Harley's offer. She drugs Sarah's tea, after which Sarah awakens in a brothel.
Anne, thinking Sarah has abandoned her, takes Abigail into her favour and allows her to marry Colonel Masham, thereby reinstating Abigail's noble standing as a Baroness. Abigail then helps Harley to influence the Queen's decisions about the war.
When Sarah returns, Abigail offers her a truce but is rejected. Sarah issues an ultimatum to Anne: change her stance on the war and send Abigail away or she will publicly disclose letters that detail their sexual relationship. Sarah, remorseful, burns the letters, but Anne nevertheless sends her away.
Lord High Treasurer and key advisor Godolphin convinces Anne to mend her relationship with Sarah, persuading Sarah to send a letter that Anne eagerly awaits. When Abigail, who has been promoted to Keeper of the Privy Purse, presents "evidence" that Sarah had been embezzling money, Anne does not believe her.
Sarah's letter arrives but is intercepted by Abigail, who 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.
With Sarah gone and her position secure, Abigail begins to ignore Anne while indulging in society and openly having affairs. One day, she abuses one of Anne's rabbits. Anne, now very sick, sees what Abigail is doing, forces herself out of bed and angrily orders her to kneel and massage her leg. She gradually pulls Abigail's hair as Abigail winces and begrudgingly massages her.
Cast
Olivia Colman as Anne, Queen of Great Britain Emma Stone as Abigail Hill Rachel Weisz as 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 Sally
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. Dempsey has said she was "haunted" by "the passion, the survival instincts of these women, the manipulations and what they did to survive."
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:
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."
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". 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."
Lanthimos began working closely with screenwriter Tony McNamara on "freshening up" the script, after reading McNamara's pilot script for The Great. Of the film's lesbian-centric love triangle, Lanthimos said in 2018:
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."
By 2013, the producers were receiving financing offers from several companies, including Film4 Productions and Waypoint Entertainment, which later worked on the film. 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", and that Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, and Lee Magiday would produce under their Scarlet Films and Element Pictures banners, respectively.
Of her working relationship with Lanthimos, Dempsey said:
Casting Casting for The Favourite began in 2014 when Lanthimos contacted Olivia Colman. 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. By October 2015, Rachel Weisz had replaced Winslet. The Favourite is the second collaboration between Lanthimos, Colman, and Weisz, both actresses having appeared in Lanthimos' The Lobster (2015). In February 2017, Nicholas Hoult joined the cast of the film, followed by Joe Alwyn in March 2017. On 8 August 2018, Mark Gatiss, James Smith, and Jenny Rainsford were announced as members of the cast.
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." 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. Stone auditioned after asking her agent to contact Lanthimos, 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".
Colman found playing Anne "a joy because she sort of feels everything." 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." 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." 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. Stone was hesitant to accept the role, at first thinking Abigail was "a sweet kind of girl, the victim, a servant to these people", 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."
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". 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."