Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite (2018) is a stunningly original historical drama that reinvents the costume film with biting wit, visual eccentricity, and emotional depth. Starring Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone, the film chronicles the turbulent triangle between Queen Anne, her confidante Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, and the ambitious servant Abigail Hill. Set in early 18th-century England during the War of the Spanish Succession, it is a story of power, manipulation, and the fragile boundaries between love and exploitation.
Combining historical fact with Lanthimos’s trademark absurdism, The Favourite explores how personal emotions — jealousy, insecurity, lust — shape the course of political history. It is at once tragic, darkly comic, and profoundly human, blending baroque excess with psychological precision. The film earned widespread acclaim, winning the Academy Award for Best Actress (Olivia Colman) and receiving ten Oscar nominations, solidifying its place as one of the defining films of the decade.
Plot Overview
The film opens in the early 1700s. Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) reigns over England, but her authority is undermined by poor health, emotional instability, and grief. Suffering from gout and obesity, and mourning the loss of seventeen children, Anne is a deeply lonely monarch. Her closest companion and advisor is Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz), a woman of sharp intellect and political ambition who effectively governs in the Queen’s name.
Sarah dominates both the royal court and the Queen’s affections, guiding policy and manipulating parliamentary decisions. She supports increased taxes to fund the ongoing war against France, while the opposition seeks peace. Her influence is both personal and political — she controls Anne through a combination of affection, flattery, and intimidation.
The delicate balance of power shifts with the arrival of Abigail Hill (Emma Stone), a fallen noblewoman who arrives at court seeking employment. Initially assigned to scrub floors, Abigail quickly proves clever and resourceful. When she tends to the Queen’s gout with herbal remedies, Anne takes notice. Gradually, Abigail gains favor and ascends through the ranks — from servant to lady-in-waiting to the Queen’s confidante and lover.
A subtle yet vicious battle unfolds between Sarah and Abigail for control of the Queen’s emotions and the political power that comes with it. Sarah attempts to maintain her dominance, confident in her sophistication and long-standing intimacy with Anne. Abigail, on the other hand, uses manipulation, charm, and opportunism to secure her place. The two women engage in psychological warfare, each leveraging the Queen’s frailty to her advantage.
In the end, Abigail triumphs — Sarah is banished from court, and Abigail becomes Anne’s new favorite. But her victory is hollow. The Queen, now entirely dependent on her, sees through Abigail’s deceit and begins to resent her. The final scene — haunting and surreal — shows Abigail forced to rub Anne’s swollen legs while the Queen stares vacantly ahead. The power she sought has become a gilded prison.
Character Analysis
Queen Anne (Olivia Colman)
Olivia Colman delivers one of the most complex portrayals of monarchy ever committed to film. Her Queen Anne is pitiable yet tyrannical, absurd yet tragic. Emotionally volatile and physically deteriorating, Anne is a woman consumed by grief, longing, and insecurity. Her behavior oscillates between childish tantrums and moments of genuine tenderness.
Anne’s character embodies the loneliness of power. Surrounded by sycophants and opportunists, she is desperate for love and validation. Her attachment to Sarah, and later Abigail, reveals her yearning for intimacy — yet both relationships are entangled with manipulation. Her vulnerability makes her easily exploited, yet her authority makes her dangerous.
Colman’s performance captures the contradictions of Anne’s character: a monarch with absolute power yet no control over her own emotions. She is both the film’s victim and its tyrant, a tragic figure who mistakes affection for loyalty.
Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz)
Rachel Weisz’s Sarah is sharp, commanding, and uncompromising. She is the film’s embodiment of intellect and reason — a woman who wields power through wit and confidence. Her relationship with Anne is rooted in genuine affection, though it is also shaped by dominance and political calculation. Sarah believes she knows what is best for the Queen and the country, and she is unafraid to assert her influence openly.
Sarah’s tragedy lies in her inability to recognize that emotional manipulation is still manipulation. Her honesty — rare in the deceitful environment of the court — becomes her downfall. When Abigail rises, Sarah underestimates her, believing that her long-standing intimacy with Anne makes her irreplaceable. She discovers too late that in the world of politics and desire, loyalty is always conditional.
Abigail Hill (Emma Stone)
Emma Stone’s Abigail is a masterclass in ambiguity. At first, she appears innocent and sympathetic — a fallen aristocrat seeking survival in a cruel world. But as she ascends the social hierarchy, her ruthless ambition emerges. Abigail’s rise is driven by desperation: she will do anything to regain the status she lost.
Her relationship with Anne begins with genuine tenderness but soon turns transactional. Once she secures her position, she becomes indifferent to the Queen’s suffering. By the end, she embodies the corruption she once despised. Stone’s performance is brilliant in its subtlety, revealing a woman who masks her cruelty beneath charm and politeness.
Themes
Power and Manipulation
At its core, The Favourite is a study of power — how it is acquired, maintained, and lost. The royal court functions as a microcosm of political corruption, where emotional bonds and sexual relationships become tools of governance. Both Sarah and Abigail understand that proximity to the Queen means control over the kingdom.
Yet, the film also reveals the emptiness of power. Each character, once triumphant, finds herself trapped. Sarah loses everything, Abigail gains everything but happiness, and Anne remains a prisoner of her own vulnerability. The cyclical nature of manipulation ensures that no one truly wins.
Love and Exploitation
Love in The Favourite is inseparable from control. The relationships between the three women blur the lines between affection and exploitation. Anne loves both Sarah and Abigail sincerely, yet both use her for their own ends. Sarah’s love is genuine but patronizing; Abigail’s love is false but more attentive.
The film suggests that in a world defined by hierarchy, even love cannot escape politics. Every act of tenderness becomes an act of leverage, every moment of vulnerability a potential weakness to exploit.
Gender and Power
One of the most striking aspects of The Favourite is its all-female power structure. While men appear in the film — notably Nicholas Hoult as the scheming politician Robert Harley — they are peripheral figures, often portrayed as ridiculous or ineffectual. The central drama belongs entirely to women who navigate, manipulate, and dominate a patriarchal system.
By focusing on female agency in a male-dominated world, the film challenges traditional historical narratives. It shows that women, too, are capable of ambition, cruelty, and political genius — though their methods of exerting power are shaped by the limitations imposed upon them.
Isolation and Madness
Like Lanthimos’s earlier films (The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer), The Favourite explores the theme of isolation. All three main characters are profoundly alone. The Queen’s loneliness stems from emotional loss; Sarah’s from intellectual superiority; Abigail’s from her hunger for survival.
As their manipulations intensify, their isolation deepens. The film’s final act reveals that the pursuit of power inevitably leads to madness — a descent captured in the Queen’s vacant stare and Abigail’s hollow triumph.
Visual Style and Cinematography
Cinematographer Robbie Ryan transforms The Favourite into a visual feast of excess and distortion. The film’s baroque interiors — filled with towering ceilings, candlelit corridors, and extravagant costumes — are shot using wide-angle lenses and fish-eye perspectives that exaggerate space and create a sense of disorientation.
This visual approach underscores the absurdity of court life, where grandeur masks decay. The palace becomes both a theater and a prison, filled with characters performing roles for one another.
The lighting is predominantly natural, using daylight and candlelight to create an atmosphere of authenticity and intimacy. The costumes, designed by Sandy Powell, combine historical accuracy with stylized elegance — luxurious fabrics and exaggerated silhouettes that reflect both opulence and artifice.
Lanthimos also employs modern cinematic techniques — abrupt zooms, dissonant music, and unconventional framing — that infuse the period setting with contemporary energy. The result is a film that feels both of its time and timeless, bridging the gap between historical realism and psychological surrealism.
Tone and Genre
While The Favourite is a historical drama, it often borders on dark comedy and satire. The dialogue, written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, crackles with wit and irony. The characters exchange insults with the precision of a duel, and the absurdity of court rituals provides moments of grotesque humor.
Lanthimos’s signature style — deadpan performances, bizarre rituals, and tonal shifts — gives the film an unsettling rhythm. Laughter often turns to discomfort, and tragedy hides beneath farce. This balance of humor and horror is what makes The Favourite so distinctive; it refuses to let the audience rest comfortably in either emotion.
Historical Context
While the film takes creative liberties, it is loosely based on real historical figures. Queen Anne (1665–1714) was the last monarch of the House of Stuart. Her close friendship with Sarah Churchill, and later with Sarah’s cousin Abigail Masham, did indeed cause political turmoil.
The historical Sarah was a powerful political figure who supported the Whig party, while Abigail’s rise coincided with the Tories’ resurgence. However, Lanthimos and his writers focus less on factual accuracy and more on emotional truth — turning history into allegory.
The film thus uses history not as a record of events but as a lens through which to examine timeless human dynamics: jealousy, loyalty, and the corrupting nature of desire.
Conclusion
The Favourite (2018) is a triumph of modern filmmaking — a historical drama that reinvents the genre through dark humor, visual innovation, and emotional depth. It is a story about three women caught in a web of passion and power, each driven by love, ambition, and survival.
Olivia Colman’s portrayal of Queen Anne is both heartbreaking and grotesque, earning her the Academy Award for Best Actress. Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone deliver equally mesmerizing performances, their on-screen rivalry electric and unpredictable.
Lanthimos transforms the royal court into a battleground of the soul — a place where affection is currency, loyalty is an illusion, and power is always fleeting. Beneath its lavish costumes and candlelit halls lies a universal truth: that those who seek control often become its victims.
In the end, The Favourite is not merely a film about queens and courtiers, but a meditation on the human condition — on the hunger for love, the intoxication of power, and the loneliness that haunts both. It is one of the most compelling and visually audacious films of the 21st century — a modern masterpiece of deceit, desire, and decay.
