{"id":2271,"date":"2019-02-14T17:58:55","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T17:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2271"},"modified":"2019-02-14T17:58:55","modified_gmt":"2019-02-14T17:58:55","slug":"oscars-2019-the-favourite-and-cold-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/02\/14\/oscars-2019-the-favourite-and-cold-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscars 2019: The Favourite and Cold War"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Favourite<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Going into this, my knowledge of both Queen Anne and Jorgos Lanthimos was a bit skimpy. I had seen and largely enjoyed The Lobster<\/em><\/a>, although I felt it ran out of energy towards the end and began substituting sadism for ideas. The mannered performances also began to grate after a while.<\/p>\n

The Favourite<\/em> is built on much firmer foundations, with the peculiar dialogue and mannered delivery pared back, and sitting much more comfortably among the period costumes. This is the tale of lonely, wretched, sickening, petulant, childish Queen Anne, who malingers, surrounded by flunkies, toadies and lickspittles, but none quite so close or as cunning as the Duchess of Malborough. Into this febrile atmosphere is dropped Marlborough\u2019s cousin, Abigail, who quickly sees that she can re-ascend society\u2019s ladder via the monarch, with or without Marlborough\u2019s cooperation.<\/p>\n

Lanthimos has found some extraordinary locations to shoot in, and the costumes are absolutely wonderful. As the atmosphere of the court intensifies, whether it\u2019s the bickering between the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition; the hideous games played with humans, fruits and animals; or the pathetic and eccentric needs of the Queen, an enjoyably surreal mood takes hold. It rather reminded me of Alice in Wonderland<\/em>, specifically the Jonathan Miller television production, in which he eschewed animal heads and let the actors\u2019 faces be clearly seen \u2013 because for him the story was about Alice\u2019s bemusement at the manic pointlessness of the adult world.<\/p>\n

Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara\u2019s script deviates enthusiastically from what is historically certain, but whereas, as I\u2019ve said, The Lobster<\/em> ran out of steam, one of the most satisfying things about The Favourite<\/em> is the way that the energy builds and builds and builds. The price one pays for this is a slightly sluggish opening half hour, but that is doing things the right way round after all.<\/p>\n

And although he shoots with a lot of swooping Steadicam or hand-held camerawork, with super wide angle lenses, distorting the picture, this doesn\u2019t feel like a tyro director who has rudely imposed his vision on the work. The story mainly speaks for itself (with possibly only the nigh-on unreadable credits and captions suggesting an indulgent director) and Lanthimos is obviously in love with his cast.<\/p>\n

And what a cast! The boys don’t get an awful lot to do, but James Smith, Mark Gatiss and especially Nicholas Hoult are marvellous. No, it\u2019s the central toxic trio of ambitious women who are the focus of this extraordinary film. Olivia Colman deserves all her praise, as the bellicose, pathetic, sentimental and possibly stroke-afflicted monarch. It\u2019s a richly complex performance, never asking for sympathy and yet somehow managing to earn it. Emma Stone has a few accent wobbles, but she\u2019s such a charming and winning performer that it scarcely matters and as her ambition erodes her few remaining morals, she\u2019s compelling. But Rachel Weisz I thought nicked the film. Marlborough is probably the best part, and Weisz tears into it with compelling relish and won\u2019t let go. She\u2019s astounding.<\/p>\n

Yet, I still think this is very good, rather than a masterpiece. The actors generate a great deal of complexity and sympathy, but we are still presented with a story largely about three ghastly people doing awful and selfish things to each other for the whole of the running time. That starts to become a bit deadening after an hour and a half. And although the shooting and acting styles are toned down, the lack of naturalism still creates a barrier between audience and characters which might have allowed for a little more compassion to creep in, if it had not been there.<\/p>\n

Cold War<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Less satisfying, but still very admirable is Pawe\u0142 Pawlikowski\u2019s Cold War<\/em>, included here because Pawlikowski is the surprise nominee for Best Director, despite the film not getting a Best Picture nod (even though there are up to ten slots). This is the story of a couple who meet at a sort of band camp in post-war Poland \u2013 she is the star pupil, he is one of the directors. Over the course of the next ten or so years, they defect, are separated, return to Poland and are reunited. This is very much a film of three halves.<\/p>\n

In the first act, things move sluggishly, but Pawlikowski makes the details count. He is also immensely blessed with Joanna Kulig who is utterly radiant as Zula, and who lights up the screen whenever she appears. How she uses the auditions and performances to her advantage, the manner in which she hooks up with Wiktor, and her hopes and dreams for a better life are compellingly, if prosaically told.<\/p>\n

When the action moves to Paris, and the lovers are separated, the movie begins to gather steam. As well as finding stars, Pawlikowski has a great feeling for time and space, and the world of post-war Paris seems incredibly real and exciting. But the story begins to fragment a little, sudden leaps in time become more frequent and it becomes harder and harder to keep track of who is where and who wants what.<\/p>\n

In the final third, the performances and the mise-en-sc\u00e8ne are just as strong, but the cutting forward in time becomes almost ADHD in nature \u2013 and this is not a long film at only 83 minutes. By the time the lovers are reunited, both suffering greatly, the decision-making process has been so little examined that it\u2019s hard to escape the conclusion that they are both simply the victims of their own poor choices, and so the supposedly tragic ending left me cold.<\/p>\n

Just two to go now \u2013 Vice<\/em> and BlackKklansman<\/em> which I\u2019m still hoping to catch at a cinema somewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Favourite Going into this, my knowledge of both Queen Anne and Jorgos Lanthimos was a bit skimpy. I had seen and largely enjoyed The Lobster, although I felt it ran out of energy towards the end and began substituting sadism for ideas. The mannered performances also began to grate after a while. The Favourite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[25,11],"tags":[521],"class_list":["post-2271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-the-cinema","category-culture","tag-oscars-2019"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-AD","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2271"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2276,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2271\/revisions\/2276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}