After a very poor autumn for films (it feels like we've hardly been to anything except Vintage Sundays in ages), there seem to be several things coming up this month that I'd like to see. The first of them was The Favourite; I was feeling slightly trepidatious about it after I realised it was by the same director as The Lobster, which I found deeply weird and not as enjoyable as it should have been, but I liked this one a lot better.

The Favourite is a fictionalised version of the rivalry between Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, and Abigail Hill, later Baroness Masham, at the court of Queen Anne. Plot-wise, it's basically All About Eve with ridiculous eighteenth-century wigs and more overt lesbianism; it features terrific performances from Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone and Olivia Colman as the three central figures, all of whom are realistically flawed (Sarah is overbearing and frequently cruel, Abigail is a manipulative social climber and Queen Anne is capricious and cantankerous) without ever being completely unlikeable; and I'm always happy to watch films where the women are foregrounded with all the male characters relegated to supporting roles* (Nicholas Hoult was particularly good as Robert Harley). There are fantastic costumes and stunning sets (some of it was filmed in the Divinity School - I remember walking past when they were filming there and seeing men in eighteenth-century costumes and wigs getting curry from the catering trailer outside the Sheldonian), a nicely-calculated use of deliberate anachronism for effect, and amazing wigs (yes, I know I keep harping on about the wigs). And it's very funny, if not quite as funny as the man behind me who appeared to have decided to laugh at literally everything** seemed to think. Highly recommended if you get a chance to see it.

* one of the last films I saw before this was Widows, which I thought would do this, but that was much more about men than I was expecting.

** he was also part of the obligatory group of North Oxford People Who Think They're Entitled To Give A Running Commentary, which is the major disadvantage of the Picturehouse.