England, unspecified time but perhaps something close to 1800, a noble queen has a personal maid (starred by a marvelous rachel weisz) which strictly abuse and take advantage of her since she is totally fragile and unable to lead the kingdom. She is trying to raise the money and destablish the queen from her throne raising up taxes and keeping up the war with france.
The movie, from the greek hand of Lantimos mashs up creepyness, anguish and ashtoninment for how easily peopel fight each other aiming to personal advantages or a bit more power. Indedd, a new competitor comes in to the scene, the pretty Emma Stone which is an old fallen cousin of the maid and which will hide secrets and her two-faces to get what she wants.
What is interesting is that men appears as puppets in women's hands since there are only 2-3 male roles in the whole movie. The real thing is betwwen the 2 girls which are trying to get the award of The Favourite to the queen Anne.
Personal, political and money interests will move the two opponents to fight against each other, trying to escape from a low privileged life aiming to gain as much power they can exploiting a semi dumb queen who is not able to lead the country.
The director is not new to this kind of plots and topics, and for what concerns the direction is distinguished by lots of fish eyes (which reminds a sort of modernity in the past), shades and deep portrait as to deep rummage characters minds.
The cast is english for the majority while the Stone is american, may to highlight that she is foreign and she is a stranger to the court and to the queen as well.
Scenography is masterpiece, every detail highly matter for the director and the result is a perfect screenshot of that time and a full immersion for the viewer.
Regarding the #Oscar night, i'm totally agree with the award to Olivia Coleman since her role is hard and she is very brilliant ! She results creepy and even her is a puppet between hands of the two malicious women...
Enjoy !