Genre: Period Drama (although the filmmakers swear it’s a comedy)
Premise: (from IMDB) In early 18th century England, a frail Queen Anne occupies the throne and her close friend, Lady Sarah, governs the country in her stead. When a new servant, Abigail, arrives, her charm endears her to Sarah.
About: They say it takes forever to get a movie made. The Favourite proves that’s no joke of a statement. The first draft of this script was written in 1998. Deborah Davis, the writer, admits she was so green at the time that she had to go to night school to learn how to screenwrite. Even then, the script caught the interest of producer Ceci Dempsey. Almost a decade later, Dempsey got the script into Yorgos Lanthimos’s hands (Yorgos’s film, Dogtooth, had just been nominated for best foreign language film at the Academy Awards), who brought in another screenwriter, Tony McNamara, to improve the script. At that point, financiers were reluctant to fund the film because there was no male lead. Flash-forward to present day, where having three female leads gets your project greenlit faster than a Mission Impossible sequel. After Davis passed the torch to McNamara, he and Yorgos began a 7 year process where McNamara would write a draft, Yorgos would read it, they’d meet for 2 weeks, Yorgos would give notes, and McNamara would go back and write another draft, and so on and so forth.
Writers: Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara
Details: 2 hours long
For those of you keeping track, I’m not the biggest Yorgos fan. Reading The Lobster is still one of the most unpleasant reading experiences of my life, akin to doing my taxes while standing in line at the DMV while someone peels my eyelashes off one by one. Yorgos tackling a walk-and-talk dress-up drama didn’t inspire confidence that things had changed. But so many of you have asked for my thoughts on The Favourite, I thought I’d give it a try. I super-promise I’m going to give the movie a fair shot.
Since most of you haven’t seen the movie, I’ll break it down for you. It’s 1708. Britain is without a king. So Queen Anne sits on the throne free solo (sorry, I’ve watched five dozen Alex Honnald Youtube videos since Wednesday). Anne is sick from a debilitating disease, meaning her top general, Sarah, who is also her secret lover, is covertly running the country. This perfect dynamic is thrown into disarray when Sara’s younger prettier cousin, Abigail, shows up looking for a job. Abigail’s once high-ranking family has fallen on hard times, meaning she’s now a nobody.
Abigail uses her charm to weasel her way into Sarah’s graces, then uses her new access to the queen to weasel her her way into Anne’s graces. It works. The temper-tantrum prone Anne starts requesting Abigail instead of Sarah, which pisses Sarah off. Sarah tries to get rid of Abigail, but Abigail is too smart. She executes a plan to get rid of Sarah, which works for awhile, until Sarah finds her way back. As war rages between Britain and France, it becomes clear that these three ladies won’t be settling their drama any time soon.
Well, this is a lot better than that Lobster script, I’ll give it that. Probably because Yorgos wisely passed writing duties on to actual writers this time around. It’s also better than Roma, although all you have to do to achieve that is film your movie in color and not include 10 minute shots of water flowing down a drain.
Like a lot of these movies, The Favourite lacks an overarching plot. It’s a character piece through and through. And if you’re going to go that route, instituting a well-understood story device helps a ton. In this case, they use a love triangle. A love triangle isn’t a plot (there isn’t a goal inside of it). However, the unresolved nature of a love triangle can be enough to keep the reader reading. That’s because human beings inherently want to stick around until something is resolved. And a love triangle is kind of like a regular love story on steroids. There’s only so much you can do with two people. But with three people, a lot of new avenues open up, especially in a setting like this, where immense power is a part of the equation. That’s why this film works – because we have to see how this love triangle ends.
Something I’ve found (generally speaking) with character-driven material is that their second acts are better than traditional plot-based screenplays. That’s because the second act is the character conflict act. It’s not only about getting the MacGuffin. It’s about hashing out all of the issues. Plot based material always starts out strong. It sets up a cool situation where terrorists have taken over a building or the hero has to recover the nukes. But it’s for this very reason that when it’s time to slow down and explore the relationships in the story, the script seems confused, like a Ferrari being asked to use a Camry engine.
Meanwhile, the character-driven film thrives in this section because it’s what the story’s all about. Once we’ve set up who these women are, what they want, and how they plan on getting it, we can sit back and enjoy the complex dynamic and all the conflict that comes along with it. One of my favorite moments in the film is when Sarah and Abigail are off shooting and a squire (?) runs up and says that the Queen is requiring “your” presence. Sarah steps forward but is told, “Um, not you. She requested her,” and he points to Abigail. It’s a pivotal moment that ups the ante considerably between the three women.
But therein lies my first issue with the film. Things never get that bad. I wanted at least one of these women to be relentless – go full Machiavelli. But it never happens. There’s a politeness to the jockeying that always left me wanting more. This extended into the story itself, which pulled way too many punches. There’s a moment where Sarah is drugged by Abigail, falls off her horse, and is found by prostitutes at a brothel. I was expecting the film to go super dark here. This esteemed hand of the Queen is now relegated to pulling tricks for the rest of her life. But no. She doesn’t have to prostitute herself at all. And within a few days, she’s back at the castle.
The script also suffers from a weak third act. McNamara says that he and Yorgos struggled with the ending, and you can see that plain as day. This is always always ALWAYS the problem when you write a script that isn’t GSU centric. Without a destination (an overarching goal guiding your hero towards a specific situation), you will never have a concise way to end things. This almost always results in a fizzling third act.
Think about it. When you’re on a road trip, when is the most exciting part? It’s those last 20 minutes. You’re finally getting close to your destination. Well imagine if there was no destination. How would you know when to get excited? I’m not even sure what the ending here was. It was a sad close up. Par for the course with these plotless movies.
With that said, I didn’t dislike the movie. The woman who played the Queen did an amazing job. The overall production was impressive. And the second act, as I pointed out, was strong. But outside of that, I couldn’t muster enough enthusiasm to give this movie a pass.
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth a rental
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I would’ve made the war a bigger component of the plot and not just a meaningless background story. When you’re writing a character driven screenplay, you have to find ways to give the story structure. Outside plots (a war, in this case) can do that for you. But only if you fully embrace them. If you deal with them halfheartedly, we won’t take them seriously, and, as a result, they won’t add the structure the script so desperately needs.
