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The Favourite is a fantastic film. One of the best I saw at VIFF this autumn. Emma Stone’s best performance by far. Weisz and Colman were superb too. The film is delightfully wicked and gorgeously shot. The sound design is on point as always.
Lanthimos is a tryhard, obviously, and can be overly meticulous and almost pedantic in his directing at times... and sometimes this falls flat like with Alps and to a degree The Lobster. But the style of film he creates requires this zealous sculpting of every little detail and it is what made his other three films brilliant imo. He reminds me of Beckett, that mix of absurdism and the surreal. I know quite a few who think Beckett is also a tryhard and call his work tedious “mental masturbation.” But I think Beckett is brilliant and it’s his attention to detail and full submersion into the absurd that make his work so.
With The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Favourite Lanthimos has finally shown the experience and ability to grow past the formula of his first 3 films and build on the promise he showed with Dogtooth. Especially in this latest film he’s fully moved past fixing his leads into that wooden dialogue that lacks all humanity and nuance that worked with the psychological horror of TKOASD but not so much in The Lobster. I’d call The Favourite his first masterpiece. It really is great.

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