True Stories 40: 10s—The Favourite

Last week I called this period film a true-ish story. What that means is that like a lot of films based on historical events, it takes something that really happened and imagines the ins and outs of the events. The Favourite [2018], by Deborah Dais and Tony McNamara, is set in the early 1700s, and tells the story of the friendship between Queen Anne of Great Britain and Lady Sarah Churchill, the wife of the Duke of Marlborough. The women were very close but as time went by, their friendship suffered because they were in different political camps. Add to this, the rise in popularity of Abigail Masham, the Queen’s cousin, and you have a chance to poke fun at the nobility.

Take a look at the trailer for the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYb-wkehT1g

The film walks a line between making fun of the monarchy and the rivalries therein and dismissing the monarchy completely. It’s almost a modern day criticism of the monarchy and the behaviors it fosters.

There is so much in this film that is not true. There’s little that’s known about Queen Anne, so that helps where you’re making a “true” story—I mean, how can anyone criticize your choices when no one knows the truth anyway? So, in that respect, the film does the same things many films do when it comes to historical accuracy—it ignores what the truth probably was. And in the case of this film, that even extends to costuming. As the director says, the costumes are not accurate to the period. It’s as if the filmmakers decided what they thought an audience would want to see in terms of how these women dressed and gave them costumes that would make the audience comfortable.

But hey, lots of films aren’t at all historically accurate—even when based on real people and events. So what is my problem? Why does this film rankle me so much? After all, it was the darling of nearly all the awards that year. And audiences generally liked it!

For me, though, the film was like a slapstick treatment of a queen’s life and rule. I’m not British, I don’t have any particular feeling for the monarchy [well, except to feel sorry for them—having to live their lives in a royal fishbowl], but I thought the tone of this film was just over the top. I never believed these people were real—even though, of course, they were. The film made the choice to do a sort of send-up of the time period and the women in it, and throughout the whole thing I kept wondering what it had really been like. Personally, I would have preferred a little truth, a little imagining of the time period and these women, rather than just a send-up.

But we’re all different—what didn’t appeal to me appealed to legions of others. True stories—hard to please everyone, isn’t it? Next week, a film that came out in the same year that I absolutely loved [but many didn’t]—Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Copyright © Diane Lake

19Mar23

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com