“ The Favourite”

Unlike “ The Lobster” ( reviewed here June 19, 2016 ) and “ The Killing of A Sacred Deer” ( Jan. 26, 2018), the new Yorgos Lanthimos film is not written by him. Writers Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara are less ambiguous in intent;and therefore,the theme of “The Favourite” is much easier to discern than Lanthimos’ other films. The nilhilistic elements softened.

His new film is a parody of sorts about power and self-interest. “How goes the kingdom?” comes in second to “How goes me?”. Self-indulgence is rampant. The sub-text may be “entitlement sucks”. “The Favourite” leaves the entitled wallowing in self-pity, anyway.

Part historical period piece, “The Favourite” centers on personal relationships and how these relationships impact the larger world, especially when our actors are women balancing world power. Our setting here is early eighteenth-century England. The last of the Stuart monarchs, Queen Anne is in her six-year-reign ( 1702-1707 ). Olivia Colman embodies the gout-ridden dyspeptic, who has not been able to produce an heir though she has been pregnant seventeen times. She comforts herself with cages of rabbits, one for each lost child.

Her childhood friend, Sarah Jennings Churchill, an ancestor of Winston, wheedles her way into becoming “Keeper of the Privy Purse”. Rachel Weisz continues her work under Director Lanthimos in the part of the wily Sarah, now The Duchess of Marlborough. We see her handling the affairs of state as well as the Queen. Sex and nostalgia are used to stay in favor.

Conflict begins when Sarah’s poor cousin, Abigail Hill ( Emma Stone ) rides into court hoping for a secure position. Competition ensues as both vie for being the Queen’s best bud.

Abigail begins as a scullery maid and her colleagues gloat in her mistakes. When she oversteps her station, we see her taking “ six of the birch” and sharing soap on a rope to cleanse her stripped and whipped back.

Hazy natural light meshes with candlelabra glow to give viewers tapestry delights of manor house grace. There are plenty of close-ups and fish-eye views of cupid-bow lips and wheel-chair races. Bathing in chocolate, throwing persimmons at naked men, and dancing between venison puffs and pineapples highlights the excess. When the war with France is equated with a party, we understand selfish displays and the toll.

Lanthimos is king of the visual. The cinematography of
Robbie Ryan is a joy. Horseback riding never looked more freeing even if the gallop ends with pulling mushrooms for a fungal paste to be slathered on the Queen’s swollen legs. Ryan’s camera‘s whip-pan movement is both stylized and modern. Sixteen century estates are panoramic yet intimate. Fish-eye lens give close-ups a character-penetrating feel. Movement and light are used beautifully.

The bunny squashing and the superimposed rabbits over the faces of our female lovers is creepy and wierd, but it works as oddball humor that is emotionally affecting. Likewise, the fabulous score underscores each character’s movement, both physically and emotionally. ( My one critique being the final- almost country western- song as the credits rolled. What was that?)

The dialogue is sharp. Lady Marlborough’s “Let’s shoot something!” And the Queen’s “ Rub my legs.” belies the manipulation and palace intrigue. Once Abigail “wins” and the Marlboroughs are banished, we are left with ermine studded garb, duck liver, and no ecstasy whatsoever.

In the final shot, Queen Anne’s loveless face equates with sad meaninglessness. Abigail produces one tear and one nostril drip for her trouble, and the bunnies just keep copulating. Prepare for creative debauchery of the female sort with a sad/funny tone akin to our times.

“La La Land”

Ryan Gosling ‘s talent saved this retro-musical for me. His deep chords and soft voice, his easy sway and final lament brought me  near tears. This incredibly sad movie was more wrenching than bittersweet. Why can’t one have one’s dream and one’s love? Canadian, ex-Mouseketeer, Gosling and large-eyed Emma Stone seemed jinxed by time.

With a theme that has decision-making seen as narrowing one’s possibilities, the song ” City of Stars, Are You Shining Just For Me ”  will have everyone feeling lonely, and have everyone  wondering ” what if “. Director Damien Chazelle, whose film “Whiplash” was reviewed here January 4th, 2015, has another winner.

Mia ( Stone) and Sebastian first see each other in a freeway traffic jam. They are chasing all the light in another day of sun. She flips him the finger when he blares his horn, and they bump into each other at parties and in the coffee shop where Mia works as a barista. Their romance begins, and it is enthralling. That feeling of time standing still is captured in dance movements that swirl and soar.

Horn honker and finger thrower are in love. Struggles and support for their careers of actress/playwright and jazz pianist follow. The story arc is predictable, but so heartfelt that we invest again in first loves.

J.K. Simmons makes a cameo appearance as a grouchy piano bar manager who fires Sebastian ( Gosling ) for not sticking to his approved repertoire.When Sebastian spouts, ” That’s LA.~ worship everything, value nothing.” we get a premonition of heartbreak, conflict, and compromise.

Through jealousy and extensive touring, we see our lovers drift. The shadow dancing in swirls of clouds still lift our expectations. This love can make it. Lyrics like ‘ Here’s to the mess we make. Here’s to the ones who dream. Here’s to the hearts that ache, fools who leap”, we root for them. It is impossible for romantics to believe that timing is everything.

Fast forward five years. Mia’s mind-movie captures a longing that moving forward always leaves.

Sebastian’s plaintive, “One more dream that I can’t make come true” will stick with you, and so will Gosling. 

“Irrational Man”

At seventy-nine,Woody Allen can no longer charm romantically inclined girls,so what does he do? Make fun of the romantic temperament,of course.

As writer and director,Allen does his wordplay thing, called antithesis. “Conservative ~in a liberal way” is how Jill,our smitten college senior,( Emma Stone) describes her philosophy teacher, Abe. ( Joaquin Phoenix) Murder as giving one meaning to live is Abe’s existential thought, “The perfect murder made me feel alive.” When Jill cites that Abe suffers from despair, he retorts drolly with “How comfy that would be”.

Joaquin Phoenix enters in a voiceover as Abe Lucas. He is in a late-model,gray Volvo entering a new campus setting in Newport. Abe is relaxed as he bonds with his philosophy students and ironically talks about “situational ethics”.Kant’s perfect world where there is no room for lying foreshadows Allen’s storyline,too. Kierkegaard’s “anxiety is the dizziness of freedom” meshes with Abe’s choices and moral posturings.With flask always at hand, Phoenix is so comfortable in the role that he often channels Woody’s mannerisms. This is funny and adds another layer of depth to the film. His definition of philosophy as verbal masturbation does not.

Emma Stone is equally as good as the besotted Jill. When she stares with her big blues and states,”I hate that you think I’m practical”, the audience gets that she is too romantic to throw away the risk of losing a boyfriend for dating her prof. Allen uses a second character voiceover to keep us guessing who is really “the irrational man”,student or teacher. Anyway, Jill sees Abe as a brilliant sufferer. She wears a new perfume on a restaurant date and sighs,”I love that you order for me.”

If Emily Dickinson is quoted as “drunk on air” then Woody is “drunk on music”. His film’s jazzy score is often more entertaining than the film’s action. Besides Abe imbibing non-stop on single malt Scotch, his colleague in the Science Dept. unscrews flasks just as fast. Parker Posey plays the screwable Rita. Initially,she has trouble making the character more than a caricature. As the film progresses,she warms up and plays a dreamy foil to Jill.
When Abe complains,”I can’t write. I can’t breathe”, Rita follows up with “I hope you are not going to send me out into the rain without sleeping with me.”Forthright and gossipy,her crackpot theory and mutual crush rattles Jill and allows for a neat story arc.

Sartre’s “Hell is other people” is shown when Abe sees no way to save himself but by killing the precocious Jill. The storyline is silly. The flashlight roll into the elevator memorable.The passive intellectual finding zest for life in murder is more cause for despair than for humor. Go with your instincts on this one. A dark cloud has crossed Woody’s moon and there is poison in the park.