The Favourite is a 2018 period black comedy film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara. It is a co-production of the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, and the United States. Set in early 18th-century England, the story examines the relationship between two cousins, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough (played by Rachel Weisz), and Abigail Masham, who later became Baroness Masham (Emma Stone), vying to be Court favourites of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman), loosely based on historical events. Filming took place at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire and at Hampton Court Palace in Hampton Court, Surrey between March and May 2017.
The film premiered at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on 30 August 2018, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and the Volpi Cup for Best Actress (for Colman). It was released in the United States on 23 November 2018 by Fox Searchlight Pictures and in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland on 1 January 2019. The film became a box-office success, grossing $95 million worldwide on a $15 million budget.
The Favourite received widespread critical acclaim, particularly for its screenplay, direction, acting, cinematography, costume design, production values, and music. It received numerous awards and nominations, including ten Academy Award nominations, tied with Roma for the most nominations of any film that year. The Favourite also won a leading seven BAFTA Awards (including Best British Film and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Weisz) and ten British Independent Film Awards. Colman won Best Actress at the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, and the BAFTAs. The film was ranked by the American Film Institute as one of the top ten films of 2018.
It is 1704, and England is at war with France. Queen Anne is in frail health; she shows little interest in governing, preferring activities such as racing ducks and playing with her 17 rabbits, one for each of the children she has lost. 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 (who was later created, in May 1711, The 1st Earl of Oxford) and Earl Mortimer, the Leader of the Opposition, who as a landowner, argues against a doubling of property taxes proposed in order to fund the war.
Abigail Hill, Sarah's impoverished younger cousin, arrives in search of employment. Abigail's standing is 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, but, after seeing the Queen's gout, forages for herbs and then applies them to the Queen's inflamed legs. Sarah has her whipped for her entering the Queen’s bedroom without permission, but relents and makes her lady of the bedchamber after she realises that the herbs have helped the Queen. Harley asks Abigail to spy on Sarah and the Queen, hoping to circumvent Sarah's authority. Abigail witnesses Sarah and the Queen having sex.
With Sarah focused on the war effort, Abigail kindles a friendship with Anne, which becomes sexual. Sarah becomes aware of Abigail's machinations and attempts to send her away. Abigail drugs Sarah's tea, causing her to fall off her horse and be dragged on the ground unconscious. Sarah awakens in a brothel, battered from the fall. Anne, thinking that Sarah has abandoned her to make her jealous, takes Abigail into her favour. She allows her to marry Samuel, 1st Baron Masham, reinstating Abigail's noble standing.
When Sarah returns to court, she issues an ultimatum to Queen Anne: 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. A remorseful Sarah burns the letters but Anne nevertheless sends her away from court. When Abigail, now promoted to Keeper of the Privy Purse, presents what she claims is evidence that Sarah had been embezzling money, Anne exiles Sarah and her husband from Britain.
While lounging in the Queen's chamber, Abigail abuses one of Anne's rabbits by deliberately pressing down on its neck with her shoe. Anne, now very sick, is awakened by the animal's distress cry. Finally realizing Abigail's cruel nature, Anne forces herself out of bed and orders Abigail to massage her legs as if she were a servant, while gradually bearing down on Abigail's head with her hand.
Cast
Olivia Colman as Anne, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland
Emma Stone as Abigail Hill, who becomes Abigail Masham after her marriage in 1707. She later becomes Baroness Masham after her husband's ennoblement in 1712.
Rachel Weisz as Sarah Churchill, Duchess of M
Nicholas Hoult as Robert Harley
Joe Alwyn as Samuel Masham (later created, in 1712, The 1st Baron Masham)
Mark Gatiss as General John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
James Smith as The 1st Earl of Godolphin
Jenny Rainsford as Mae
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 draft, titled The Balance of Power, to producer Ceci Dempsey, who responded enthusiastically.[7] Davis had little knowledge of the Queen and her relationships with Sarah Churchill and Abigail Masham. Her research led her to the discovery of a "female triangle".[7] She studied letters written by Queen Anne, Sarah, and Abigail:
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]
This is the first film Lanthimos directed with screenwriters Davis and McNamara. Lanthimos was attracted to Davis' and McNamara's script and "became acquainted with the three female characters who happened to be real people. I felt 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".[8] 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.[9]
Pre-production
Producer Ceci Dempsey, who read the first draft, said she was "haunted" by "the passion, the survival instincts of these women, the manipulations and what they did to survive". However, Dempsey had difficulty securing financing at the time, due to the lesbian content, as well as the lack of male representation, which financers felt would be challenging to market. Almost a decade later, producer Ed Guiney got hold of the script and was similarly attracted to the complicated plot and relationships of the three women. "We didn't want to make just another British costume drama", he stated, "[we wanted] a story that felt contemporary and relevant and vibrant — not something out of a museum".
During this time, Guiney became acquainted with Lanthimos, whose film Dogtooth (2009) had received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and approached him with the prospect of directing the film. Lanthimos immediately became intrigued with the idea that “[t]hese three women possessed power that affected the lives of millions” and at the same time found the story to be “intimate” as well. Lanthimos then began working closely with screenwriter Tony McNamara on “freshening up” the script. By 2013, the producers were receiving financing offers from several companies, including Film4 Productions and Waypoint Entertainment, which eventually worked on the film.[5]
In September 2015, it was announced that 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".[10] Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday and Andrew Lowe served as producers under their Scarlet Films and Element Pictures banners, respectively.[11]
On the film's lesbian-centric love triangle, Lanthimos said:
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.[12]
He also elaborated on the "positive" effect the Me Too movement has had on the film: "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."[8]
Casting
Casting began in 2014 when Lanthimos first contacted Colman.[13] By September 2015, it was announced that Emma Stone, Olivia Colman and Kate Winslet had been cast in the film, portraying Abigail Masham, Queen Anne and Sarah Churchill, respectively.[11] By October 2015, Rachel Weisz had replaced Winslet.[14] The Favourite is the second collaboration between Lanthimos, Colman and Weisz: both actors appeared in Lanthimos' The Lobster (2015).[15] In February 2017, Nicholas Hoult joined the cast of the film, followed by Joe Alwyn, in March 2017.[16][17] On 8 August 2018, Mark Gatiss, James Smith and Jenny Rainsford were announced as part of the cast.[18]
Casting was crucial for Lanthimos, who describes his process as "instinctive": "It's one of those things when you feel you're right and you need to insist no matter what."[5] Colman was his only choice for Queen Anne. After Winslet left the project, Lanthimos offered the role to Cate Blanchett, who declined.[19][20] Stone auditioned after asking her agent to contact Lanthimos.[21] Lanthimos then asked that Stone work with a dialect coach. "It was making sure that we would be able to work creatively free without the accent being a hindrance in the way that we wanted to work," Lanthimos said.[22]
Colman found playing Anne "a joy because she sort of feels everything". When asked if the character was nothing more than 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."[8] Colman said that the difference between Anne and the previous queens she has played was that "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 was primarily attracted to the project due to the prominent female leads, considering her role to be “the juiciest” of her career.[23] 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 she finished reading the script and ended up "begging" Lanthimos to be cast. Stone's greatest concern was mastering her accent: "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
The film premiered at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on 30 August 2018, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and the Volpi Cup for Best Actress (for Colman). It was released in the United States on 23 November 2018 by Fox Searchlight Pictures and in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland on 1 January 2019. The film became a box-office success, grossing $95 million worldwide on a $15 million budget.
The Favourite received widespread critical acclaim, particularly for its screenplay, direction, acting, cinematography, costume design, production values, and music. It received numerous awards and nominations, including ten Academy Award nominations, tied with Roma for the most nominations of any film that year. The Favourite also won a leading seven BAFTA Awards (including Best British Film and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Weisz) and ten British Independent Film Awards. Colman won Best Actress at the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, and the BAFTAs. The film was ranked by the American Film Institute as one of the top ten films of 2018.
It is 1704, and England is at war with France. Queen Anne is in frail health; she shows little interest in governing, preferring activities such as racing ducks and playing with her 17 rabbits, one for each of the children she has lost. 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 (who was later created, in May 1711, The 1st Earl of Oxford) and Earl Mortimer, the Leader of the Opposition, who as a landowner, argues against a doubling of property taxes proposed in order to fund the war.
Abigail Hill, Sarah's impoverished younger cousin, arrives in search of employment. Abigail's standing is 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, but, after seeing the Queen's gout, forages for herbs and then applies them to the Queen's inflamed legs. Sarah has her whipped for her entering the Queen’s bedroom without permission, but relents and makes her lady of the bedchamber after she realises that the herbs have helped the Queen. Harley asks Abigail to spy on Sarah and the Queen, hoping to circumvent Sarah's authority. Abigail witnesses Sarah and the Queen having sex.
With Sarah focused on the war effort, Abigail kindles a friendship with Anne, which becomes sexual. Sarah becomes aware of Abigail's machinations and attempts to send her away. Abigail drugs Sarah's tea, causing her to fall off her horse and be dragged on the ground unconscious. Sarah awakens in a brothel, battered from the fall. Anne, thinking that Sarah has abandoned her to make her jealous, takes Abigail into her favour. She allows her to marry Samuel, 1st Baron Masham, reinstating Abigail's noble standing.
When Sarah returns to court, she issues an ultimatum to Queen Anne: 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. A remorseful Sarah burns the letters but Anne nevertheless sends her away from court. When Abigail, now promoted to Keeper of the Privy Purse, presents what she claims is evidence that Sarah had been embezzling money, Anne exiles Sarah and her husband from Britain.
While lounging in the Queen's chamber, Abigail abuses one of Anne's rabbits by deliberately pressing down on its neck with her shoe. Anne, now very sick, is awakened by the animal's distress cry. Finally realizing Abigail's cruel nature, Anne forces herself out of bed and orders Abigail to massage her legs as if she were a servant, while gradually bearing down on Abigail's head with her hand.
Cast
Olivia Colman as Anne, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland
Emma Stone as Abigail Hill, who becomes Abigail Masham after her marriage in 1707. She later becomes Baroness Masham after her husband's ennoblement in 1712.
Rachel Weisz as Sarah Churchill, Duchess of M
Nicholas Hoult as Robert Harley
Joe Alwyn as Samuel Masham (later created, in 1712, The 1st Baron Masham)
Mark Gatiss as General John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
James Smith as The 1st Earl of Godolphin
Jenny Rainsford as Mae
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 draft, titled The Balance of Power, to producer Ceci Dempsey, who responded enthusiastically.[7] Davis had little knowledge of the Queen and her relationships with Sarah Churchill and Abigail Masham. Her research led her to the discovery of a "female triangle".[7] She studied letters written by Queen Anne, Sarah, and Abigail:
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]
This is the first film Lanthimos directed with screenwriters Davis and McNamara. Lanthimos was attracted to Davis' and McNamara's script and "became acquainted with the three female characters who happened to be real people. I felt 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".[8] 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.[9]
Pre-production
Producer Ceci Dempsey, who read the first draft, said she was "haunted" by "the passion, the survival instincts of these women, the manipulations and what they did to survive". However, Dempsey had difficulty securing financing at the time, due to the lesbian content, as well as the lack of male representation, which financers felt would be challenging to market. Almost a decade later, producer Ed Guiney got hold of the script and was similarly attracted to the complicated plot and relationships of the three women. "We didn't want to make just another British costume drama", he stated, "[we wanted] a story that felt contemporary and relevant and vibrant — not something out of a museum".
During this time, Guiney became acquainted with Lanthimos, whose film Dogtooth (2009) had received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and approached him with the prospect of directing the film. Lanthimos immediately became intrigued with the idea that “[t]hese three women possessed power that affected the lives of millions” and at the same time found the story to be “intimate” as well. Lanthimos then began working closely with screenwriter Tony McNamara on “freshening up” the script. By 2013, the producers were receiving financing offers from several companies, including Film4 Productions and Waypoint Entertainment, which eventually worked on the film.[5]
In September 2015, it was announced that 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".[10] Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday and Andrew Lowe served as producers under their Scarlet Films and Element Pictures banners, respectively.[11]
On the film's lesbian-centric love triangle, Lanthimos said:
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.[12]
He also elaborated on the "positive" effect the Me Too movement has had on the film: "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."[8]
Casting
Casting began in 2014 when Lanthimos first contacted Colman.[13] By September 2015, it was announced that Emma Stone, Olivia Colman and Kate Winslet had been cast in the film, portraying Abigail Masham, Queen Anne and Sarah Churchill, respectively.[11] By October 2015, Rachel Weisz had replaced Winslet.[14] The Favourite is the second collaboration between Lanthimos, Colman and Weisz: both actors appeared in Lanthimos' The Lobster (2015).[15] In February 2017, Nicholas Hoult joined the cast of the film, followed by Joe Alwyn, in March 2017.[16][17] On 8 August 2018, Mark Gatiss, James Smith and Jenny Rainsford were announced as part of the cast.[18]
Casting was crucial for Lanthimos, who describes his process as "instinctive": "It's one of those things when you feel you're right and you need to insist no matter what."[5] Colman was his only choice for Queen Anne. After Winslet left the project, Lanthimos offered the role to Cate Blanchett, who declined.[19][20] Stone auditioned after asking her agent to contact Lanthimos.[21] Lanthimos then asked that Stone work with a dialect coach. "It was making sure that we would be able to work creatively free without the accent being a hindrance in the way that we wanted to work," Lanthimos said.[22]
Colman found playing Anne "a joy because she sort of feels everything". When asked if the character was nothing more than 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."[8] Colman said that the difference between Anne and the previous queens she has played was that "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 was primarily attracted to the project due to the prominent female leads, considering her role to be “the juiciest” of her career.[23] 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 she finished reading the script and ended up "begging" Lanthimos to be cast. Stone's greatest concern was mastering her accent: "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
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