My Favourite

 I adore Olivia Coleman .
Just listening to her giving an interview fills me with pleasure, as her self effacing and always breathless humour is exactly what I find attractive in another human being.
I've treated myself to a midday showing of The Favourite today
So later, I shall share the review
I suspect Mz Coleman will receive a few plaudits .

The Favourite has a " look" all of it's own.
Set against the fashions of an early 18th Century Royal court, director Yorgos Lanthimos has created a sumptuous, predominantly black and white hued version of the power struggles of three very different women.
Lady Marlborough ( Rachel Weisz ) the straight talking power behind the frail and sickly Queen Anne ( Olivia Coleman) is effectively running the Royal Court and indeed the country.
When her cousin Abigail ( Emma Stone) a lady fallen on difficult times arrives asking for a job the dynamic between Queen and her confidant and lover is challenged which leads to a whole series of manipulations and intrigues behind the Royal Closed doors.

Hard stare Stone

This is a powerful and clever film which balances the characters of all three protagonists equally.
Each woman is shown in balance.. sometimes we see each acting as a monster, sometimes with more  sympathy and not one quite outshines the other in the intensity of their performances.
Weisz and Stone dance around each other with wonderfully wicked turns and Coleman truly shines as the complex and childish Monarch...especially in one pivotal scene where we are only privy to a facial close up, which literally breaks your heart, as she shares the heartbreak of a Queen ravaged by bereavement and bad health.

Weisz in full swish