MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS directed by Josie Rourke (UK/USA, 2018)
THE FAVOURITE directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (UK/USA, 2018)
Personally, I blame Harvey Weinstein.
Were it not for him (and similar monsters) the gender politics that drive these two royal dramas would have been quite different.
Both are contemporary, feminist-orientated dramas which play fast and loose with notions of historical accuracy. The tone and thrust of each is to resolutely present women centre stage and very much in charge of their own destinies. Men are there to service their ambitions or else conveniently sidelined.
In Prince George of Denmark and Norway, Queen Anne had a perfectly serviceable husband in real life. Instead, in ‘The Favourite’, he is written out of her story completely and replaced by 17 pet rabbits. These bunnies represent all her failed pregnancies but nothing is said about how these would-be heirs were conceived. If the story is to believed her lesbian inclinations would have made traditional procreation impossible.
Anne’s scheming new chambermaid, Abigail Masham, is her favourite partly because she likes how her tongue feels inside her. The power struggle between Lady Sarah Churchill, the Queen’s agent and confidant, and Abigail is thus given a sexual dimension that is, at best, a highly speculative interpretation of this threesome.
In Mary, Queen of Scots’, Lord Darnley shows similar oral prowess in pleasuring Mary Stuart and when she offers to reciprocate he gallantly (and implausibly) refuses. When it comes to straight sex he’s less talented. He has to be goaded into doing the deed but the resultant marital rape at least leads to the birth of James. Having been nobly wooed and royally screwed, Darnley is then casually discarded.
A similarly unromantic sequence between newly weds occurs in ‘The Favourite’ when we see Abigail distractedly giving a hand-job to her new husband while plotting her next move. The message seems clear enough: men are necessary evils to bestow sperm or status on their spouses but are otherwise disposable.
This presentation of the male-female roles satisfies the understandable demand of audiences to see women more as controllers than chattels. By giving greater weight to telling the stories from a female perspective, they are retrospectively presenting a #metoo version of the past.
Queen Elizabeth’s decision to live a celibate life is cited as one of the main reasons why her reign endured so long. This so-called virgin queen knew the pitfalls of males and marriage (“Men are so cruel”). Meanwhile Mary, her rival, compromises for the sake of tradition and suffers a fate which gives another meaning to the term ‘giving head’.
Both directors treat historical facts as inconvenient truths that get in the way of good drama. Who cares that Elizabeth and Mary never actually met face to face or that Anne was straight?
This creative retelling of these regal stories would matter less if the movies were more skillfully made. Instead, Josie Rourke, who comes from a theatrical background, has yet to develop the knack of showing not telling. Red hair in a snowy landscape looks pretty but adds little to the drama especially when accompanied by a pedestrian script.
Alfonso, in contrast, goes out of his way to show off as many visual flourishes as he possibly can. The deployment a fish eye lens together with the choice of an intrusive soundtrack are just two ways in which he shows a preference for style over substance.
Much of the widespread praise for these two films is down to the exceptional performances by the female protagonists. The awards bestowed on them are fully deserved but should not blind viewers to the major historical and cinematic flaws that blight both movies.
