Tag: Joe Alwyn

The Brutalist (2024)

Stunningly filmed, ambitious epic brilliantly unpacks patronage, immigrant experience and the American dream

Director: Brady Corbet

Cast: Adrien Brody (László Tóth), Felicity Jones (Erzsébet Tóth), Guy Pearce (Harrison Van Buren), Joe Alwyn (Harry Lee Van Buren), Raffey Cassidy (Zsófia), Stacy Martin (Maggie Van Buren), Alessandro Nivola (Attila Miller), Emma Laird (Audrey Miller), Isaach de Bankolé (Gordon), Ariane Labed (Adult Zsófia), Michael Epp (Jim Simpson), Jonathan Hyde (Leslie Woodrow), Peter Polycarpou (Michael Hoffman), Maria Sand (Michelle Hoffman)

As long as there have been artists, there have been patrons: wealthy men who provide the finance for the artist to create. The relationship between them has quietly defined our cultural history, the legacies of famed artists whose work fills galleries and public spaces coming about due to the wealth and ego of those behind them. It’s one of many themes explored in Brady Corbet’s epic The Brutalist, the mix spiced by placing its powerless, traumatised artist as a friendless stranger in a strange land, escaping a lifetime of persecution: a Holocaust survivor making a new start in the Land of the Free.

László Tóth (Adrien Brody), a famed Jewish Hungarian architect who narrowly survived the inhumanity of Buchenwald, arrives in America in 1947. Greeted with exploitative warmth by his wife Erzsébet’s (Felicity Jones) cousin Atilla (Alessandro Nivola), an Americanised furniture salesman, László’s skills are poorly exploited until Atilla is commissioned to build a library for billionaire Harrison van Buren (Guy Peace) by his son Harry (Joe Alwyn) as a surprise birthday present.

Van Buren, who loathes surprises, reacts with rage until, years later, an architectural magazine commends László’s library as a work of genius. László, thrown out by Atilla (who blamed him for losing the van Buren’s as clients) is hired by van Buren to build a gigantic community centre: a concrete cathedral on a hill. Van Buren helps arrange the immigration of Erzsébet in the country, but both Tóth’s discover van Buren’s darkly sinister passion is control, the two struggling against constant obstructions and László’s self-destructive qualities in a country where they are always strangers.

Corbet’s epic film partly becomes an exploration of the struggles of an outsider in a new land. It’s made abundantly clear that, far from a land of equality, America is a country of fierce hierarchies where those with money and power have almost complete autonomy to do whatever they want, and those at the bottom can be bought and sold. And few are as low and unwanted as the immigrant (it’s striking László’s closest friend is Gordon, a unemployed Black single father, another walking symbol of the underclass).

Corbet signals all in America will not be plain sailing on László’s arrival at New York – after a virtuoso tracking shot (one of many in this lusciously filmed epic) – László stumbles out to the deck of the boat and cranes upward, the camera following him to see an upside-down vision of the Empire State Building. This is not an image of hope and expectation. The immigrant, even the Holocaust survivor, is an unwelcome figure. Alessandro Nivola’s Attila has bent over backwards to hide his roots – changing his name and accent and pouring all his self-loathing into the thin charity he offers László (a poorly furnished room at the back of his shop, a blasé offer of an invite to the odd meal). Flashes of generosity don’t hide the fact László is first for any blame.

It’s just a warm-up though for László’s life as architect-in-residence for Harrison van Buren. Played with a smarmy grandiosity with a streak of reptilian cruelty, Guy Pearce makes Harrison a true monster, a Medici for the modern ages with László as a Michaelangelo, whose flourishes are tolerated only while his artistry reflects glory onto Harrison. Harrison, with his studied references to art, understands he has no legacy of his own (other than money) and demands one created for him by László. It’s his name that will be on the van Buren centre, his glory that will be embodied by it.

Van Buren, like many powerful businessmen, talks art but his real interests are control and power. Asserting his control over László, as if wanting to absorb his creativity into himself, is crucial to him. This sees him set up László in a poorly furnished house on his estate like a pet, interjecting tiny modifications and his own controlling placemen into the project, revelling in his control over every element of László’s life. He takes a sadistic pleasure in alternating praise (his constant refrain of the greatness of László feels incredibly self-aggrandising, as if László was just another one of his bottles of fine wine) and casually cruel jibes at his accent, dress sense and lack of drive.

These are qualities instantly recognised by Erzsébet, played with a fiercely restrained passion by Felicity Jones. Open-eyed at the restrictive oppression of van Buren over her husband – after decades of first the camps and then the brutal oppression of Soviet Hungary – it is she who has more overt fight then the naturally quiet, oppressed László brings. But even she knows they are dependent on van Buren’s patronage to exist (especially after her husband’s offer to sacrifice his salary to maintain crucial elements of his design is gladly accepted), urging her husband that he must do everything possible to maintain van Buren’s passion and interest. She knows to the tasteless van Buren this cathedralic construction is little more than a kitchen renovation.

The building itself is an intriguing concrete monolith, that slowly takes shape over the course of the many years the film covers, like a medieval cathedral. Imposing pillars, and vast ceilinged rooms tower above the skyline. It’s hard to shake the feeling that, for all the passion and fire László pours into its building, it feels a dark, punishing place. Its structures reflect the concrete towers of death camps. This committed Jew might be pouring years of his life into a building crowned by a colossal cross. Its bowels fill like the water sewers so many of his people were forced to try and escape through. Its rooms feel less inviting and more like prisons with the hope of skylights and vast upward spaces. It feels at times that the building itself is a tribute to the psychological damage László has had inflicted on him by his experiences.

Experiences he cannot bring himself to speak about. His scars are less visibly clear than the wheelchair Erzsébet has been confined to, or the wordless dumbness his niece Zsófia, wonderfully played by Raffey Cassidy, suffers. But it’s there in every inch of Adrien Brody’s tortured face. Few actors are more perfectly suited to embody tortured, long-suffering perseverance than Brody (his famously broken nose is even worked into the script), and László is a tour-de-force, an austere, proud man who will not beg but also will not fight, who on some level accepts repression.

Brody’s Oscar-winning performance is a portrait of a mix of unacknowledged PTSD, self-destructive impulses (he remains a heroin addict for much of his life), survivor’s guilt and a quiet willingness to accept abuse that makes him a life-long victim. From the chaos of his own life, full of trauma, his art is all about clear, clean, ordered lines. His genius is also his curse, lifting him to the attention of monsters who exploit and take advantage of his talents for their own ends and offer him no loyalty in return. While The Brutalist could suggest László has his own secret intentions with his grand construction, the film could just as well close in its epilogue that László is trapped, wordlessly and powerlessly, within the giant edifices he has built, doomed to continuously relive in different ways the horrors of his experiences during the war.

László’s whole life feels like a quiet inversion of the American Dream. The idea that anyone can come to the country and make a future for themselves is for the birds. It’s all a roll of a dice and depends on entirely on chance and whim: without a magazine taking an interest in van Buren’s library, László could have just as easily died as an obscure docks worker. America is shown as no land of opportunity, but one where those in power control everything, get away with anything they please and pass their power and influence on to their children. Where László and his like are tolerated as exotic points of interest at the dinner table, but are never really equals. Van Buren exploits and uses László for as long as his interest holds and humiliates him (and much worse) at any point when the architect starts to forget that he is not just an extra in van Buren’s American dream.

These complex and fascinating ideas and interpretations line the walls of Corbet’s own grand edifice: The Brutalist is a film of powerful epic sweep, stunning VistaVision images and looming, ominous intensity. Stuffed with wonderful performances, it’s the sort of ambitious, epic film-making that the cinema sorely needs to hold its place as an art-form. And in its sweep and Hopper-esque artistry, it’s a superb advert for American film-making.

Hamnet (2025)

A powerful film about grief that works best in its smaller moments rather than its grand ending

Director: Chloé Zhao

Cast: Jessie Buckley (Agnes Shakespeare), Paul Mescal (Will Shakespeare), Emily Watson (Mary Shakespeare), Joe Alwyn (Bartholomew Hathaway), Jacopi Jupe (Hamnet Shakespeare), Olivia Lynes (Judith Shakespeare), Justine Mitchell (Joan Shakespeare), David Wilmot (John Shakespeare), Bodhi Rae Breathnach (Susanna Shakespeare), Noah Jupe (Hamlet)

“Grief fills the room up with my absent child”. It’s possibly one of the most profound things said about grief and loss. Naturally, it came from Shakespeare who, more than any other writer, could peer inside our souls and understand their inner workings. Grief can strike anyone, and overwhelm them, leaving them hollowed out husks, uncertain how to carry on. It’s a terrifying force that grows to dominate Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s literary best seller: how it creeps, unexpectantly, into lives that are contented and happy and works to tear down their foundations.

Hamnet imagines the emotional impact of the death of a young boy on his parents: those parents in this case being Will (Paul Mescal) and Agnes (Jessie Buckley) Shakespeare. The film takes us from courtship to marriage, Agnes pushing Will to follow his dreams in London, the birth of their children and death’s seizure of their son Hamnet (Jacopi Jupe). It will have a deep impact on their lives: for Agnes a world of grief and isolation, for Will a cathartic injection of his grief into his new play, Hamlet.

There are many things in Hamnet that work extremely well, not least it’s strong emotional force. Much of the film’s second half is extremely moving, a lot of that from the gentle build of its first half. Grief isn’t an expectant force – it bursts, unannounced into lives. The first half of Hamnet is romantic and optimistic. Will and Agnes’ courtship, two awkward outsiders in a small, rural town, is touchingly portrayed, full of awkward gestures and flashes of joy. Their marriage – over the objections of many, but with the endearing support of Agnes devoted brother, played with real heart by Joe Alwyn – is very happy and they have delightful children who they love very much.

There are tensions: it’s tough to live under the roof of Will’s parents. His father John (David Wilmot) is an abusive bully, his mother Mary (Emily Watson, on excellent empathetic form under a harsh exterior) judgemental. Will is desperate for something more than being a second-rate glove-maker. It’s actually sweet that Hamnet interprets their living apart not due to marital troubles, but a recognition that their love doesn’t need constant contact. Will’s need of London’s bustle is balanced by Agnes’ desire for nature and (ironically) to protect her children from the disease-ridden big city.

It’s the first hour’s playful, graceful unfolding that makes much of the second half hit home. Zhao’s film has an ethereal romanticism, with the camera gliding with patient, unobtrusive warmth around Agnes and Will. While dealing with raw emotions, Zhao brings a sense of magical realism to the film without overplaying her hand. A large part of Agnes outsider status is based on perceptions of her as a witch, who spends her time in the forest building her herbal knowledge (Zhao introduces her with a phenomenal birds-eye shot, nestled womb-like in the roots of a large tree), trusts her dreams and has formed a deep link with a pet hawk. This other-worldly presence in Agnes, carries across in the film’s vibrant, dreamy nature – and shows why Agnes is so drawn to the shy, awkward poet, who similarly feels most alive in his own visions and dreams.

It makes the second half particularly impactful, as the truly shocking death of a child (surely one of the most traumatic child deaths put on screen, devoid of peaceful, Little Nell-like beauty and with Hamnet suffering in prolonged, agonising pain) rips into the happy haven of this life. Zhao’s compassionate distance works brilliantly here, as the film brings us into the pained lives of these bereaved parents, without every once making us feel like intruding voyeurs. Instead, we feel every blow of the film’s perfectly observed exploration of the mundane reality of grief.

A lot of that is also due to Jessie Buckley’s searing performance as Agnes. Buckley is perfect as this slightly jagged, eccentric but determined women who knows her own mind and refuses to bend to others, full of an earthy romanticism. Her vulnerability is there – there is a very moving moment during her twin’s birth, when Buckley rests her head on Watson’s shoulder and weeps pitifully for her (deceased) mummy. But it doesn’t prepare us for Buckley’s perfectly judged raw emotionality. From an agonised, near silent scream at Hamnet’s death, Buckley shifts brilliantly into a shocked quiet whisper that she must tidy up the mess. Over the next few scenes, she collapses into herself, berating her husband with cold fury, wanting him to feel as paralysed with grief as she is. This is a fabulous performance by Buckley, well-matched by Mescal, whose pained soulfulness is perfect for a man processing grief through drama.

But I found the transition of this grief into the creation of Hamlet strangely less moving and more contrived. I’ve always found the attempts to use Shakespeare’s work to fill historical gaps in his biography tiresome. Hamnet studiously ignores that the role was played first by the middle-aged Richard Burbage, rather than a young actor – Noah Jupe, brother to Jacobi playing Hamnet – resembling the late Hamnet. Hamnet carefully re-cuts and selectively stages scenes of Hamlet to present it solely as the tragedy of a lost, sensitive soul. Lord knows what the emotionally enthralled Agnes made of the parts of Hamlet the film doesn’t stage: Polonius’ murder, the abuse of Ophelia, Hamlet making “country matter” gags and so on. Fundamentally it’s a lazy conceit that art can only come by replicating someone’s real experience and is presented in an obvious way designed to score straight-forward emotional points.

Hamnet gets so much right, it hurts that it doesn’t always work. There is an emotional anachronism to the central concept that didn’t land with me: was Hamlet just an inspired, cathartic therapy session for Shakespeare (unlikely since he ripped the plot from an older Danish legend called Amleth)? It lifts me out of things, just as the production and costumes frequently feels a little too clean, a little heritage (even more so considering the raw emotions). Moments of dialogue don’t quite ring true and little things like Shakespeare’s swimming ability (a skill possessed by virtually no one in Tudor England) or its coy dance around confirming Agnes’ historical illiteracy that jar. I’ll also confess I’m irritated by the film’s carrying across of the books conceit in avoiding naming Shakespeare for as long as possible (for almost 100 minutes), while making it clear from quotes throughout exactly who Mescal is playing.

But of course, I know, it’s an emotional fantasia, so perhaps it doesn’t matter that it feels like something shot on a National Trust property. When Zhao’s poetic, observational realism works, it carries real impact. There is a moment at the film’s end when a mirrored overhead shot with the film’s opening, and a look of such radiant hope crosses Buckley’s face, you forgive the manipulative and obvious musical choice accompanying it. Hamnet works best, not in its final showboating act, but in the raw, quiet, everyday moments that show both happiness and grief it gets close to an emotional force that leaves a lasting impact.

Mary, Queen of Scots (2018)

Margot Robbie as a particularly dense version of Elizabeth in misfire Mary, Queen of Scots

Director: Josie Rourke

Cast: Saoirse Ronan (Mary Queen of Scots), Margot Robbie (Elizabeth I), Guy Pearce (William Cecil), David Tennant (John Knox), Jack Lowden (Lord Henry Darnley), Joe Alwyn (Lord Robert Dudley), Gemma Chan (Elizabeth Hardwick), James McArdle (Earl of Moray), Martin Compston (Earl of Bothwell), Ismael Cruz Cordova (David Rizzio), Brendan Coyle (Earl of Lennox), Ian Hart (Lord Maitland), Adrian Lester (Lord Randolph), Simon Russell Beale (Robert Beale)

Mary Queen of Scots poster The history of the Tudors has been mined so often by film and theatre that there can hardly be any hidden stories left to tell, barely any twists that can be unveiled or reimaginings that haven’t already been imagined. Mary Queen of Scots certainly fails to find any new angles on its oh-so-familiar tale, and even its attempt to rework events and characters keeps banging its head on those damn, unchangeable real events that spoil the story it seems to want to tell.

And it’s a familiar story. Mary (Saoirse Ronan) returns to Scotland from France after the death of her husband. Naturally many people aren’t keen to see this Queen, not least her half-brother the Earl of Moray (James McArdle) who was running the country, and protestant firebrand anti-feminist John Knox (David Tennant). But Mary is plugged in, sharp and savvy and she’s going to rule the country her way – and also put forward her claim for the throne of England currently held by her cousin Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie). It seems all is set for Mary’s success – until fortune begins to turn with her marriage to drunken playboy Henry Darnley (Jack Lowden). Conspiracy, murder, exile and execution are on the cards.

Mary Queen of Scots is a mess. For starters, Beau Willmon’s script does the near impossible of turning one of the most electric periods of British history into something stodgy, dull and hard to follow. Perhaps wrapped up in his House of Cards background, a show where there is a never ending stream of betrayals, counter crosses and twists for twists’ sake, Mary Queen of Scots is the same. The film is a constant parade of betrayals in Scotland, as lords shift and move sides from scene to scene with such swiftness, such lack of explanation, such lack of exploration of character and motivation, that you end up not only confused by ceasing to care. Decent actors like James McArdle and Ian Hart struggle through with ciphers (Hart literally changes sides every single scene). Martin Compston is given a confused character design as Bothwell that makes Mary’s third husband a hero until he makes a left-field heel reversal and becomes a bullying rapist. What a mess.

It’s even worse in England, where poor Guy Pearce’s every scene is a never-ending stream of exposition and historical context. Every single scene in England at the court drags and claws itself into nothingness, simply a load of dry, dense, uninvolving dialogue with characters whom we are never given any real reason to invest in. Just as the Scottish lords are ciphers who do whatever the plot requires them to do, with no time invested in developing their characters, so it’s the case with the English lords. There are many, many, many people to keep on top of but virtually no characters to invest in.

Willmon’s script also falls wildly in love with Mary herself, desperate to turn her into some genius politician and master of realpolitik, who we are frequently told is playing the game of courtly politics with aplomb and genius. “She’s out-manoeuvred us” one character constantly bemoans. However, the problem Willman has is that he eventually has to deal with the fact that the real life Mary made hideous, disastrous, stupid decisions. And since those decisions are basically the building blocks of the story (who she marries, who she trusts, who dies, where she goes, who she abandons etc etc.), there is no way around them. You are left with a film that tells you all the time how smart your lead character is, while most of the things she does are foolish.

Not least the marriage to Lord Darnley. Jack Lowdon gives a very good performance as a feckless, arrogant weakling. But surely only the densest woman alive could fail to see that Darnley is a hideously inappropriate husband? The film gets round this by stressing his charm and, in one hilariously misjudged scene, his intense skill at cunnilingus as being the thing that pulls the wool over her eyes. (After this first soft focus bit of oral play, Mary bashfully asks Darnley if he would like some “satisfaction” as well. No that’s fine he sweetly says – she really should be suspicious by then.) The film tries to course-correct by having Mary realise literally five minutes into the marriage that she has made a terrible mistake. But she doesn’t learn from it, as the rest of her life is a series of disastrous decisions, promoting the wrong people, snubbing others, leaving her son (the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN THE COUNTRY) behind when she runs away… need I go on.

As well as trying to make Mary a genius, it also balances by trying to make Elizabeth an idiot. I swear there is not a single scene in this film where Elizabeth is not in tears about something. She shows no judgement whatsoever, struggles with her hormones, blindly follows the advice of her counsellors, spends half the movie making paper roses and stroking horses rather than running the kingdom. On top of which, this film which wants to make a point about the sexism women face dealing with a world of men, turns Elizabeth (the greatest queen England ever had) into a hormonal idiot, blindly led by men and obsessed with the idea of having children (even longingly trying to make her shadow appear pregnant) because, you know, deep down the ladies just be wanting babies.

Now Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie do decent jobs with the versions of these people they play, even if none of this rings true. Josie Rourke does a decent job directing the film visually, with its Game of Thrones inspired look and feel (Edinburgh castle is turned into some sort of bizarre Dragonstone structure, half hewn out of a mountain). But its story is, to put it bluntly, really, really BORING. You are never given any reason to care about most of these characters, so the constant stream of betrayals and side shifting eventually becomes utterly unengaging. Every time you get near to thinking Mary is smart, she has to do a terribly dumb historically inspired real event, that actually makes her look even more stupid than she was. Mary Queen of Scots is a stodgy, dense, dull mess of a film that ends up being drier and less interesting than the sort of high-Hollywood epics from the 1970s it’s trying to update.

The Favourite (2018)

Olivia Colman is at the centre of a complex rivalry in The Favourite

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Cast: Olivia Colman (Queen Anne), Emma Stone (Abigail Hill), Rachel Weisz (Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough), Nicholas Hoult (Lord Robert Harley), Joe Alwyn (Colonel Lord Masham), Mark Gatiss (Lord Marlborough), James Smith (Lord Godolphin)

Looking around the cinema, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the audience were expecting The Favourite to be a Sunday night-style costume drama about Queen Anne. Goodness only knows what they made of this skittishly filmed, acidic, sharp-tongued, very rude drama about squabbles in the court of Queen Anne. The Crown it ain’t.

In 1708, the court of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) is dominated completely by her head of household, chief advisor, secret lover and domineering best friend Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz). But Sarah’s control over Queen Anne is set to be challenged by the arrival in court of seemingly charming, but in fact ruthlessly ambitious, cousin Abigail Hill (Emma Stone), a former aristocrat who has fallen on hard times. Soon Sarah and Abigail find themselves in the middle of a bitter, ruthless clash for control over Anne – who, seemingly weak-willed and disinterested in government, in fact takes an eager pleasure from the rivalry of the two women.

The Favourite is a brilliant, acerbic, very dark comedy that treats its period setting with a hilarious lack of reverence. It’s a frequently laugh-out loud comedy, with its often foul-mouthed dialogue just on the edge of being anachronistic (a trait that also comes into the hilarious non-period dancing). It takes a moment to tune up, but leans just enough on the fourth wall to work. Lanthimos’ film doubles down on the insane pressure bowl of Anne’s courts, turning the court of the 1700s into a bizarre, semi-surreal state where you have no idea what insanity you might see around the corner – from racing ducks, to rabbits roaming free, to a naked man being pelted with oranges.

But then this is the sort of bizarreness that stems from the top, and Olivia Colman’s Queen Anne is a domineering eccentric. In a film-career-making performance from Colman, her Queen Anne is part infantalised puppet, part needy insecure lover, part bitter control freak. Anne will change from scene to scene from a furious, knee-jerk rage to a weeping vulnerability. Her interest in actually ruling the kingdom has been largely beaten out of her, but she still needs to feel that she holds the power. With her body raddled with gout, Anne alternates between demanding independence and being wheeled from place to place. Colman’s performance bravely skits between temper tantrums and a desperate, panicked loneliness and sadness – it’s a terrific performance.

A woman as uncertain and unhappy in herself as Anne is basically pretty ripe for control and manipulation. History has not been kind to Sarah Churchill, who is often seen as a ruthless, power-hungry manipulator only out for what she can get, obsessed with the power her role brings her. This film takes a different, more interesting slant, thanks in part to Rachel Weisz’s superb performance. Weisz plays Churchill as a strong-minded, hard to like woman, who has a genuine bond with Anne, but honestly believes she is better suited to execute the powers of royalty than her lover. But that doesn’t stop her having feelings for her – or priding herself on refusing to lie to Anne about anything (from her appearance to her behaviour). But this doesn’t stop Sarah from ruthlessly bullying Anne or threatening her – though she’s equally happy to climb into bed with her when required.

But Sarah Churchill here is doing the things she is doing because she honestly believes that it is what is best for the kingdom and (by extension) Anne, and the moments of shared remembrance between Anne and Sarah have a genuine warmth and feeling to them. Which makes her totally different from the ruthless Abigail, played with a stunning brilliance by Emma Stone. Abigail doesn’t give a damn about anything or anyone but herself: something the rest of the servants in the household seem to recognise instinctively as soon as she arrives, but a danger Sarah doesn’t detect until too late. Abigail’s every action is to promote her own wealth and prestige, and she’ll do whatever it takes to do that, from crawling through the mud for herbs to crawling between the sheets to pleasure Anne at night. Stone’s Abigail is ruthless, self-obsessed, uncaring and on the make in another terrific performance.

The film focuses in large part on the see-sawing fortunes of these two rivals for the role of favourite – with Anne as the fulcrum in the middle. The film is split into eight chapters, each of which is opened by a quirky quote from the chapter itself. It neatly structures the film, and also gives it a slight off-the-wall quality. The film is packed with electric scenes, as the women wear the trousers in the court (often literally, in Sarah Churchill’s case), riding and shooting in their spare time and slapping down the assorted politicians and lords desperately trying to promote their interests on the edge of the court. This battle of wits and wills is a fabulous, increasingly no-holds barred, rivalry that motors the film brilliantly.

Lanthimos loves every moment of scheming and double crossing the film supplies. He shoots the film with a selection of low-angle and fisheye lenses, which make the palace settings seem as imposing, large and domineering as possible – and also distorts the world just as the feud between the two women is doing. The film looks fabulous, with its intricate design and it’s candle lit lighting. Lanthimos’ court always looks gloomy and secretive, with only a few spots of orange warmth.

Lanthimos also understands that there is very little room for sentiment or feeling here, and the flashes of it we get are never allowed time to really grow. That’s not a negative of course, as this sharp comic drama is also an arch commentary on some of the selfishness and distortion of events that lies under politics (sound familiar?), with the interests of the ordinary people of the realm raising very little interest from any side on the political divide. And Anne is such a bizarre character, so pulled between pillar and post, so desperately unhappy so much of the time, so utterly spoilt the rest, that you understand how she has become such a chew toy for court faction, and why she is happy to tacitly encourage this world where her every whim is played to for advantage.

I laughed out loud several times during The Favourite. It’s obvious to say that it feels like a film for the #metoo era – but it certainly has three fabulous, brilliant, hilarious and strangely heartfelt performances from its three female leads, three of the best actresses in the business. Wonderfully directed, beautifully written and fabulously designed, this is properly fantastic cinema.