Yorgos Lanthimos served up a gout-ridden
Queen Anne, a social-climbing viper and a pistol-packing Churchill. No wonder the awards juries lapped it upThe 50 best films of 2019 in the UKMore best culture of 2019The escalation of this nutty slab of period fruitcake from Yorgos Lanthimos – from Venice chatter-point to awards season triumph – was enough to restore your faith in the whole shaky process. Loosely based on real events, The Favourite is set in the court of a bedraggled, gout-ridden Queen Anne (Olivia Colman – in a performance that won her the best actress Oscar, Bafta and Golden Globes) in the early 18th century. There, life is as trussed up and dazzling as its ruler is crippled and miz. The men wear vertiginous wigs and slather on the makeup. They race ducks and pelt each other with fruit for sport. The women are scrubbed clean of slap and crack on with running the country. Or, specifically, Lady Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz – Bafta for best supporting actress) does: the Queen’s oldest friend and confidante who takes decisions where her flummoxed lover cannot.