The Favourite

Snagging 10 Oscar nominations (including Best Picture), Greek-born director Yorgos Lanthimos’s sumptuous 18th-century costume drama relates scandalous rumors that have circulated for years about Queen Anne, who reportedly indulged in lesbian liaisons with two of her closest sycophants. After losing 17 children, portly, peevish, petulant Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) is no longer interested in waging war with France. Instead, she’d rather eat sweets, play with her pet rabbits, and dawdle with pretty young ladies. So it’s up to sublimely scheming Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz), to make the Queen’s pivotal political decisions along with Prime Minister Godolphin (James Smith)—until suddenly Sarah’s cherubic and shrewdly conniving cousin Abigail (Emma Stone) shows up, having fallen on hard times. “Favour is a breeze that shifts direction all the time,” warns haughty, duplicitous Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford (Nicholas Hoult). Playing complicated court games, ambitious Abigail learns to make herself indispensable to the volatile, yet vulnerable, gout-stricken Queen, as a spiky power-shift occurs. A naughty, nasty showcase for the three leading ladies (all Oscar nominees) that incorporates Fiona Crombie’s lavish production design, Sandy Powell’s elegant costumes, and Robbie Ryan’s sweeping cinematography (again, all Oscar nominees), this bizarre historical farce is recommended. (S. Granger)