Welcome to Film Fancies, a program of you’re listening to radio revel. Film Fancies is my outlet for talking about films and series I’ve consumed recently. These are not critical reviews, these are just what I would put forward in the olden days when people got together, waited in line, bought a ticket, bought popcorn and Junior Mints and Milk Duds and watched a movie on a big screen together with a lot of other people they didn’t know, then went to have coffee at Denny’s and talked about what they’d all just seen together. Anyone else remember when going to the movies was almost a weekly activity, either with your group of friends or as a date?
This episode’s Film Fancy is about the 2018 film The Favourite, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, the same guy who directed The Lobster, film that I kind of panned last year. The Favourite was not on my list of must-see films to tell the truth, but I caught a video on Lanthimos’ most recent film, Poor Things, and thought I’d take a look at this earlier film before letting myself be drawn into the latest just because of visual cues from that video.
We are taken back to the early 18th century England, under the rule of Queen Anne. At this monarch’s side of was one of Winston Churchill’s ancestors, the Baroness of Marlborough, Sarah. These two women had been friends before Anne’s ascension to the throne and Sarah became the little voice of reason that whispered into Anne’s ear, the posh early-stage Grima Wormtongue who actually knows what she is doing and what should be done. Anne on the other hand, seems poorly prepared to rule, she’s sickly, lacks confidence, appears weak and counts on bursts of temper to appear strong.
Consequently, though Anne is the likely main character of the story, Sarah strides through the first part as a true protagonist, a patriot thinking only of what is best for her country, wagering between her husband’s prowess on the battlefield and Anne’s usefulness in dominating the yet-undemocratic, still-aristocratic parliament through the tradition of power vested in the person wearing the crown. The film distracts us in this way from Anne’s evolution, especially as it will soon become evident that the story line that runs through and around that evolution is focused on a third woman.
Keeping things in the family, that third woman is a cousin of Sarah’s, a fallen woman named Abagail. Abagail had once been a minor member of the aristocracy, perhaps without a title but at least with a social status, just about up to her 14th year when her father gambles her away to become a sexual plaything for an older, necessarily disgusting man. As a woman she seems to have escaped that situation and travels to the Court in the hopes that her cousin will be able to offer her a position in the service. What gets Abagail through the door, though, is not her relationship with Sarah but rather a letter that she carries recommending her to any lowly position available.
So, we have the three main characters we will watch interact: the Queen, the advisor and the maid. From top to bottom in status, the Queen is the superior person, the advisor ties and unties the purse strings and all matters associated with them, and the maid washes up after their messes. The stage is set for the dynamic between the Queen and the advisor, the advisor and the maid and finally, the Queen and the maid.
The Queen leans heavily on her born status as monarch even as she demonstrates a whining, confused and childish character. When at large she is dismayed or offended by anything, she dashes off an “Off with her head!” Queen of Hearts tantrum. When in private she wants something, she resorts to childish self-pity and simple manipulation tactics.
Consequently, the advisor, Sarah, can easily carry on her role in both the private and the more overbearing public arena by being direct, honest and, above all, cool and authoritative. Sara not only gives the Queen marching orders, she oversees the bookkeeping of the kingdom, she watches out for the Queen’s ill health, she controls the politicians and she makes sure her husband is out doing what he does best, leading regiments to victories against larger enemies. Sarah, like the Queen, was both born and then married into her power, educated in the ways of wielding it and is over-all very successful.
That leaves us with Abagail as a possible character of change. Abagail, lost into private prostitution by her wagering father, fallen from social status, pushed into the mud on more than one occasion, why she can only move up, isn’t it so? She may start out by scrubbing floors with lye and sleeping among candles and farts in concentration camp-like bunks, but her countrified past gives her a bit of an edge. Like any old hag living alone in a cabin in the woods, considered a witch by the good people in town but sought out when any of those good people need a spell or potion, Sarah finds her way into the royal bedchamber through knowing about herbs that will ease infection and pain. And the Queen just happens to have that infection and pain.
You could say that Abagail carries the so-called fatal flaw of hubris, of pride, but I don’t think that is the case here. Abagail is actually primarily concerned with getting out of a seemingly nasty, second/third-class destiny, a destiny tied to mud and torn dresses and tangled bedclothes and, let’s face it, abject poverty. As the film moves forward we can see Abagail using her tools, her fallen lady status, her old-crone knowledge of herbs, her pity-evoking emotional frailty to get what she wants. Though she actively dismisses the political, backstabbing, gossipy ways of the Court in her first moves, she later embraces them as she pulls herself out of the muck that stains her clothes and her character.
Sarah, though prideful, is not cursed by pride as a flaw, it is instead a feature. She was born into a proud family, learned pride to be an aspect of good character, uses her pride wisely to shield herself from outside power struggles, then uses it as a weapon to slash at those who might become obstacles to what she feels is best. That pride saves her from abuse in her lowest moment of the film, but is momentarily gone as she literally sits in a tub of mud with the Queen. And who put these two women in that tub of mud? Why Abagail, of course.
I’d almost say that none of these three women end up demonstrating that moment of change needed to satisfy the dramatic action that brings a play to its climax, but I’d be wrong.
Abagail suffers circumstantial changes, she does become part of the Court, does manipulate her way into a handsome yearly allowance, but the person of Abagail does not change at all. Her insecurities remain, she will kneel before her superiors, she will only find comfort in those circumstantial comforts she sought and achieved. While she asserts that she has won, Sarah calmly points out that the two women were playing different games. Abagail’s victory was not over Sarah, it was over circumstances.
Sarah also goes through circumstantial change. She may fall slightly in favor of the Queen, she might be less the favorite of the title of the movie, she may slip into cheap blackmail from her former clever logical control, she may find her beauty marred, her status lowered to that of a whore, her access to the Queen removed with the simple handing over of a key, but those moments that might have weakened her, forced her to take the place of Abagail as the lowest of the three women, were just moments. Sarah remains true to herself, to her ethics and beliefs in speaking the truth and basing her emotions on that concept of speaking the truth. Even as her punishment becomes evident, Sarah is more than capable of taking advantage of the circumstances, her pride again shields her from adversity.
Now, Anne, the Queen, well she may seem to be the same throughout, even up to the end. We watch her float through tantrums, fits of weeping and self-pity, obsessive eating disorder, gout, a stroke, being carried about on a sledge or pushed about in a wheelchair, on a constant downward path towards her death at the early age of 49. What we also watch, though, is how she slowly comes to the realization that she is the Queen, that despite her 17 dead children, despite her loneliness at the top, she has allowed herself to be led by the advisor, she has taken the easy way out, has allowed truth to harm her rather than strengthen her.
Changing the favorite from the advisor to the maid gives Anne the opportunity to make the change she had been avoiding. She no longer does what she is told, this begins even before Sarah is gone, this is what leads Sarah to resorting to blackmail rather than noble truth. Anne begins reading government documents, which she admits to not understanding, but she makes the effort. She may seem to ask Abagail to help her to understand but it is clear Abagail will be of no help. Even as Abagail takes up the purse strings, Anne does not give credit to the maid’s reports. Self-bereft of her advisor, replaced with a simple maid who will buck up her spirit with mocking lies, Anne sees the truth more clearly.
The final scene shows this change, though very late, in the character of Anne. Despite her illness, despite the certainty of her impending death after only a few years on the throne, despite her taking down the Stuart dynasty by not leaving an heir, Anne makes it clear that she has finally internalized her position as queen. She sees the innate cruelty in her maid, she pulls her semi-paralyzed body from the bed she’s occupied throughout the film, she pulls herself to her feet and orders the maid to rub her legs, the first contact Abagail had with this woman, back when she was truly just a scullery maid. To crown the moment, the Queen announces that she must lean on something. She is not leaning on the intelligence of the advisor, no, she leans on the kneeling maid before her. Anne is truly the queen, something that was only a casual fact before this moment.
A period drama loosely based on historical characters with photography one would expect from this director, with happy doses of humor and perversion, I’d advise you to be prepared for a well-made film with sumptuous sets, excellently thematically executed costumes and masterful performances from the actresses that make up the triangle of crossed paths behind the story. I’m not sure it’s a masterpiece, but it is a film I wish I’d have been able to see in a cinema on a wide screen, talked about over that cup of coffee at a late-night Denny’s. Again, not for everyone, but surely for a good number of people.
Hope you tune in for another Film Fancies episode. Always watching something. Tell someone about the podcast, you might have a friend who is into cinema who’d like to hear someone talk aspects not covered in YouTube analysis of a movie. Support me if you’d like on Patreon.
Cheers,
revel.
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