Wicked Little Letters

Post Pardon Depression

or

A Comedy of Ill-Manners

 

I think I've mentioned before that you can't watch a British mystery series without one episode involving the investigation of a rash of poison-pen letters (that may or may not be true) that disrupt a community. There was one major movie, Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Raven, that we mentioned previously. 

 

The origin of this particular trope came from the scandal of the "Littlehampton Letters", a Sussex incident that caused quite the scandal between 1920 and 1923. The general story is that Edith Swan, a spinsterish woman who lived with her upright Christian parents, began to receive letters of an unseemly manner and of such vulgarity that she made complaints to the police. Suspicions immediately turned to Edith's neighbor on Western Street, Rose Gooding, as Rose seemed a person of questionable character, known for causing rows and for her obscenity-laced language. It didn't help that the letters appeared to be signed by Rose. That first letter started: "You bloody old cow, mind your own business and there would be no rows. – R." That Rose had a child and was living with a man didn't help things. Nor did that the letters appeared after Rose was reported to Child Protective Services by someone in the neighborhood.

Rose was arrested and charged with criminal libel, and as she could not afford bail, she was in prison for three months. During Rose's incarceration, the letters naturally ceased. When she was released, the letters began again, expanding in scope, and Rose was again arrested, convicted and sentenced to 12 months in prison.

All neat and tidy, said the law. But the story didn't end there, through the efforts of a dogged police-woman—Sussex's first—Woman Police Constable Gladys Moss, who began to suspect that things weren't as neat and tidy as her male counterparts believed it to be. With the help of Scotland Yard, she was able to trace who the letters were coming from—the courts wouldn't allow writing analysis in the trials—and catch the actual culprit in the act.

Wicked Little Letters tells the story of the case, and, truly, it lives up to it's opening title: "This is more true than you'd think." Oh, there are little changes here and there, mostly for the sake of diversity in casting, and to ram home the point that those times were more prejudicious than our own (although it's ironic that they try to make the point of how good we've got it by casting non-white players to signal to us that these people are dealing with oppression and prejudice*). Actually, our times are just as bad, only less by a matter of degrees.

Edith Swan is played by Olivia Colman, her parents by Timothy Spall and Gemma Jones. Jessie Buckley is Rose Gooding and her live-in man is Malachi Kirby. Anjana Vasan plays Woman Police Constable Moss, and Rose's neighborhood allies include Eileen Atkins, Lolly Adefope, and Joanna Scanlan. However much kerfluffle may have been going on in Western Street in the 1920's, it couldn't have been as entertainingly chaotic as this cast makes the circumstances involved. Colman, particularly, is a study in contrasts. Initially making friends with Buckley's Rose, Colman's Edith couldn't be more thrilled—a little shocked at her raw forthrightness—as Rose is as free-spirited as Edith is repressed, belittled, and subjugated in her father's household. When the whole letter-thing is delivered at her doorstep, she becomes alternately victimized, outraged, and (once the papers get ahold of it) prideful of her role as upright citizen standing up for the decency of civilization. Her performance is a master-class of expressiveness whatever the role Edith takes on.

And Buckley holds her own with the more ostentatious part as Rose, unapologetically coarse even as she's being accused of coarseness, while fully realizing that she is just a gavel's slam away from losing her family as a consequence. But, her Rose is a scrapper, not willing to go down without a fight, even as it appears as her whole world is falling apart. And Vajan, after years of bit parts and one-line roles, pops right out of the screen as a determined copper not content to merely know her place, her eyes almost comically revealing the frustration and battling fierceness required to see justice done. 

Wicked Little Lies careens between comic (it's rated "R" for hysterically "pervasive language"), dire, and subversive—when dealing with authority figures (predominantly male)—and made with the intent of taking the mickey out of the status quo. There is just the hint of hysteria in the parties involved rebelling against their circumstances, even if the actions don't quite push through the complacency. One wants to call it a comedy of manners, if it wasn't so enthusiastically ill-mannered.

It's also rather deliciously quaint, as one can only imagine the reaction any of these characters would have if they were exposed to social media.

 

Crikey!

 

* I don't want to harp on this too much, because I'll sound like some backwards stick-in-the-mud—you cast people because they're good, not because they're a "type"—but it occurs in the same way with the writers portraying Rose Gooding as an Irish immigrant, to reinforce that she was an outsider of "low" character. Gooding was born in Lewes in Sussex, and merely moved into the neighborhood, rather than coming from Ireland. Sometimes I think these things are betraying prejudices in the act of pointing them out. Anyway, the real people were all lily-white, and the actors portraying them are damned good.

Wonka

Come With Me/And You'll Be/in a World of Re-Imagination

or

Chocolopalypse Now
 

Did they need to make another "Willy Wonka" movie? Not really. The original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was such a fine confection, a combination of elements so slick and shabby that it far exceeded the sum of its parts. It hit the brain like dopamine, the same reaction as when chocolate melts on your tongue.

 

And like chocolate, it was a surprise that it was as good as it was, given its meager budget and its less-than-pure beginnings (Originally, envisioned as a marketing tool for a new line of candy, it pretty much had to stand on its own when Quaker Oats, the company making the stuff, had production problems and scrapped the "Wonka" candy line). The book's author, Roald Dahl, is credited with the screenplay, but he didn't really write it—his script was shelved—and David Seltzer wrote the egg-creamy Gene Wilder version. He and director Mel Stuart turned it into a perennial, one of "those" movies—the ones like The Wizard of Oz or The Black Stallion—that you have to show your kids knowing that those movie-memories will be golden, enriching and last a lifetime. Quaker Oats' loss was our gain.

So, there didn't need to be another Willy Wonka movie. In fact, the only reason to make another Willy Wonka movie...is that Wonka is so darned good.

 

A prequel of sorts to the 1970 film, it follows young Wonka (played by a winsome Timothée Chalamet), new immigrant from wherever, sailing into England (I think, hard to say), full of hopes and dreams, visions of chocolate trifles dancing in his entrepreneurial head. He has a vision, this guy, inspired by his mother (Sally Hawkins, always welcome) of making the sweetest chocolate this side of Loompaland (from which he has absconded their out-sized cacao beans) and with the magical thinking that if he can just establish his choco-shop, it will fulfill his late mother's promise that she would be at his side at the opening to divulge her secret of chocolate-making.

Illiterate, and in shabby clothes with only 20 shillings in his threadbare pocket, he ends up sleeping on a bench, when he is offered accommodations at the rooms of Scrubbit (Olivia Colman) and Bleacher (Tom Davis), where the rent is only 1 shilling to be paid by end of next day. Wonka is sure he can sell enough chocolates to pay oodles more, but before he can sign the contract, he is warned by the waif Noodle (Calah Lane) to "read the fine print" But, he can't read, so he signs—not that he would have read the slogan on the wall "Come For a Night, Stay For a Lifetime" if he could.

After a night of making confections, he goes out into the street and with just his brio (and a song), he sells his wares, only to confronted by "The Chocolate Cartel" of Slugworth (Paterson Joseph—he's great!), Prodnose (Matt Lucas), and Fickelgruber (Mathew Baynton) that his chocolates are "...weird." And is told by the Chief of the Police (Keegan-Michael Key) that he cannot sell his chocolates without a shop and without a shop he cannot sell chocolates, so he must cease and desist.

And if that weren't enough of a bad day, he is informed by Scrubbit and Bleacher that he has incurred a debt of 10,000 shillings from his stay and the fine print, and must work it off in their considerable laundry service, alongside past tenants Abacus Crunch (Jim Carter), Piper Benz (Natasha Rothwell), Larry Chucklesworth (Rich Fulcher), Lottie Bell (Rakhee Thakrar), and Noodle. Only two days in the city and Wonka is Catch-22'd into no work, no income and no hope (not to mention that when he's able to make chocolate, it is being stolen by someone nefarious that he hasn't been able to catch yet).

What's a Wonka to do?

Well, it's a musical-comedy based on a children's book, so, obviously he has a lot to do. Nobody working on Wonka is doing something world-shaking or revolutionary.

 

Other than making a darned good movie.

Oh, sure it takes about 20 minutes and a so-so song before it finds it's legs, but right about the time Wonka mentions that one of his chocolates is "salted with the bittersweet tears of a Russian clown" I was fully on-board and the film did not disappoint. In fact, it made this jaded old film-writer laugh out loud several times.

Credit must go to director/co-writer Paul King, who may be something of a magician himself. With the two Paddington Bear movies under his belt, he seems to have developed the recipe for making a charming entertainment that appeals to both kids and adults with equal rapture. There was a funny through-line in last year's The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, where Nic Cage, in attempting to bond with his millionaire benefactor asks him what his third favorite movie is and the response to his shock is Paddington 2. The Cage character is aghast, but after watching it, is moved to tears and cannot help but agree. I haven't seen the Paddingtons. On the strength of Wonka, they are now on my ever-expanding list of "must-sees."

The cast is uniformly superb. Doubts about Chalamet being a suitable Willy Wonka should be put to rest given the evidence (the reason Chalamet is so ubiquitous in movies these days is that the man's extraordinarily talented). If he's not quite Gene Wilder's sly loony Wonka, consider that this is a prequel when the character is just getting started and hasn't yet come to the point where the pressure of industrial food manufacturing will throw his gears off-slot. If such a movie is made, King might not be the best fit for it, maybe someone a bit more perverse would be in order.

But, for now, for this movie, King has done a masterful job, even finding lovely roles for such British institutions as Rowan Atkinson and Hugh Grant, who is cast as a perpetually vexing Oompa Loompa, named "Lofty," and does it with such an air of haughty superiority (and no Grant dithering) that he very nearly walks away with the picture. No small feat.

So, if one is putting off going to this one because of rumors on the cranky internet, turn it off and go. Go immediately. And take a child. Get permission, of course.
 

Where most movies skewing towards a younger audience are as disappointing as biting a hollow chocolate Easter bunny, this one is pleasingly solid.

 

Enjoy.

Empire of Light

Off Your Meds

or

"Check For Sleepers"

 

They say that every great film is a miracle—there is that magic "something" beyond the basics—the proverbial good script brought to life by great performances from actors well-cast and fit their roles like gloves. If you keep it in focus and the director doesn't try to do gymnastics with the camera to the point where you can't follow it, it's all good. 

 

But, you need that spark, whether by design or accident, to make a great film.

 

Empire of Light, Sam Mendes' new film, aspires to that. But, it's not as illuminating as it wants to be. 

 

Not for want of wattage, however. The performances are great—you expect that from Olivia Colman and Toby Jones and Colin Firth. And Mendes has a real "find" in Micheal Ward, who, though I'm sure he rehearsed and prepared and strategized for his role, does indeed have that magical spark that actors can't control—the camera loves him. It catches every thought that crosses Ward's face and communicates it clearly to the audience.

No, the problem lies in the script—Mendes' own—in that it is trying to do too many things while trying to tie the issues into a metaphor for film that doesn't quite work. Oh, it makes a nice transitory thought, but it's a flawed metaphor that doesn't have the sprocket-holes to last an entire film.

It is 1980 in the coastal village of Margate and the Empire Cinema is a movie theater/former restaurant-bar-and-ballroom that is now reduced to just two large screen theaters. We meet Colman's character, Hilary, who is the manager of The Empire and has just returned—tentatively—from a medical leave where she was at a psychiatric hospital. Evidently, there was "an incident" and she was incarcerated against her will. That's the past. She's taking her Valium and all her co-employees welcome her back with the edge of "Yes, yes, we all know what she did" in the background.

But, she's back to it, albeit a bit shyly, but you have to wonder why she came back. She doesn't go to films—never has—and her boss, the rather oily Donald Ellis (Firth) is in the habit of asking her to talk in the office which usually ends up with a shag on his desk, nothing exciting and not even with enough energy to topple the picture of his wife sitting on it. Then, there's Norman the projectionist (Jones), who's just enough of an introvert that no one minds that he spends all his time in the booth tending to the spooling and un-spooling of films.

But, a big event is coming up—the Empire is going to be holding the local premiere of Chariots of Fire and it's going to be quite the to-do. Ellis staffs up with a new recruit hiring Stephen (Ward), a work-horse of a different color—he's black (everybody else is "pale"—it's England). But, Stephen is affable, cute, and gets along with everybody, and pretty soon he's ingratiated himself with the staff, who start to see him as Stephen, rather than "the black kid." Hilary is particularly taken with Stephen—after a brief dust-up—for his fascination with the grand old building they work in and the informed and tender way he treats a wounded pigeon he finds in The Empire's abandoned upper floor.

This leads, impractically, (SPOILER ALERT) to an affair between the two where their genuine affection for each other turns physical. And to the complications that occur with a May-December romance when one of the participants self-isolates and is on mood-altering medications. One should not expect things to go smoothly, even with Lithium in the mix, but they'll go really south without it. Taking pills is not normal—unless you LIKE taking pills—and every dose reminds you of your weakness. And when "things are going good" there is the temptation to think "well, I don't need them now" and you stop taking them, like blithely taking a bottom piece out of a Jenga tower. Rinse and repeat. The Circle Game.

Which may be Mendes' point in a oddly circuitous way. At one point—when Hilary has crashed and gone back to hospital—there is a series of sequences where Toby Jones' Norman takes Stephen under his wing, showing him his sanctum of a projection booth and explaining "the trick" of the movies. They're just individual pictures running through the projector at 24 frames per second, each picture separated by a black border. But, due to a flaw in the human optic nerve, we don't see that black border, we only see the individual pictures rolling through, simulating the pace of real life. It's an illusion. It's magic. It's making the best out of a defect.

The way Mendes ends the movie—with a celebration of change, an acknowledgement of seasons, the patterns of a life and a life cycle—makes the film-metaphor of bright/dark/bright/dark a little precious and makes me think that one of the side effects of the pandemic was making directors nostalgically contemplative (and forget that they're not working with film anymore—try and make a metaphor out of digital media!). It doesn't quite work. Nor does the sub-plot of Hilary toiling away at a movie theater and not wanting to watch movies.* What would cause such a preference, I wonder? And I came up with no explanations. 

Nor did I "buy" that experiencing "the movies" would be such a glorious experience (even though I'm an obsessive about movies) that it would raise your spirits to curb—albeit briefly—a depressive's mood (despite the lessons of directors Preston Sturges and Woody Allen**). That trick doesn't always work, especially if you're going to a Bergman movie! No, movies are not cure-all's for what ails you. As one of my favorite Princess Bride lines goes: "Life is pain, Princess. Anyone telling you different is selling something." It may make them weepy at the Motion Picture Academy, but, then, they're selling something.

 

It just doesn't hang together. There are too many sub-plots and black-lines in the film to cross over for it to gel into a movie. But, on the plus side, any movie shot by Roger Deakins is worth watching at least once. And he never disappoints.

* Okay, I can understand this in a way. I used to work at a call-center, and the last thing I would want to do when I got home was talk to somebody on a phone. And despite the evidence I've seen, I continue to hold to the belief that somebody who works at McDonald's would prefer to eat at anyplace else but McDonald's. However, I've rarely seen a multi-plex employee not want to sit in on a movie...and do so.

 

** We're thinking of Sullivan's Travels and Hannah and Her Sisters here.

 

Oh. And I am selling something. There's a discussion of the film here (on the weekly Lambcast) that I participated in. It's a podcast. Don't worry, you don't have to see me. 

The Iron Lady

I recently was pulled into a "Meryl Streep Draft" where, like sports brackets, the participants picked what they thought would be the best collection of movies featuring Meryl Streep to win the competition. Weird what film enthusiasts do.

If you want to listen to the podcast where they were selected, it is here.

If you want to vote for me, the ballot is here. If I lose, voting machines will be seized.

Curiously, I did not pick The Iron Lady—I don't think any of us did—although it is Streep's usual competent display (and she won an Oscar—that counts for...something).

Written at the time of the film's release.

 

Keeping Up Appearances

or

"Don't Want to Dig Around Too Much, M'. You Don't Know What You Might Find."

The Weinstein's last bid in 2011 to win an audience of Anglophiles seems a trifle desperate and might be a bit too early to give the subject proper justice, like Oliver Stone's Nixon or W.—we're still too close to the Thatcher years to have any sort of perspective, other than a cursory glance at the events that shaped the Conservative years of the '80's. What damage was done, what was gained, is still unknowable, especially given the subsequent Blair years and how British-American relationships changed and coalesced. We get highlights and lowlights, but no illumination, and, instead, we get a look-back, not unlike Nixon's drunken reverie, but this time filtered through Maggie's Alzheimic reflections, with the dementia-figure of her dead husband Denis' presence as a Iago-like devil's advocate (played by Jim Broadbent, in just the way you think he would, a little dotty, but with a puckish edge). Really, both of them deserve a little better, no matter what one thinks of the politics.

But, the Alzheimer's is a good tool if someone wants to do a hatchet-job.  The disease brings the past into crystal clarity (for the afflicted, not for the story-teller), while also undercutting the reliability of the narrator in the present day.  Hardly seems fair, as the two women who wrote and directed The Iron Lady (Abi Morgan and Phyllida Lloyd) do seem sincere about presenting the hurdles that Thatcher had to overcome in her ambition to seek change, achieve office, and, in becoming a political animal, save her party and become PM. The role could have easily gone into caricature, were it not for Thatcher's best supporter in the film, Meryl Streep.

The role ultimately won LaStreep another Oscar (and, say what you will about the "unfairness of it all," she does deserve it—this is an amazing performance) and it contains her hallmark studied approach with the same intricate nuances she brings to every role—the rock-solid accent, the filigreed gestures, the interesting way she fills up the pauses and held-shots with interesting choices that are unexpected, but deeply felt. In the elderly sections, she doesn't quite have the "thousand-yard-stare" I've seen in Alzheimer's patients, but the frailties are there, right down to the quaking-arms-under-pressure and the processing pauses that flash through without making a big deal of them. Streep's always good, good enough that one might take her for granted, but this one's practically a one-woman show and certainly the best thing in a film that's "too little-too soon."

The Lost Daughter

O Mother, Where Art Thou?

or

"They Really Put Us Through it, Huh?"
 

Leda Caruso (Olivia Colman) is on a "working holiday" in Greece and for awhile, it's quite idyllic. She has the beach to herself and time is not an issue. She works on her studies—she's a professor—and when she tires of that, she sleeps in the sun or goes floating. There is no intrusion on her time, and, for awhile, there's no intrusion on her solitude. At first, there's only Will (Paul Mescal), the resort "boy" whose job it is to be solicitous. He's useful, when you don't know where to get a glass of water or when he offers an ice treat. Then, there's Lyle (Ed Harris), an ex-pat American who owns the resort, and is your typical ex-pat—he's helpful but a little stand-offish. He likes things the way he has them, carved out a life for himself by carving out everything else, and is basically living in the "now." His "now." He has a past, but he's not going back to it.

And, for awhile, it's good. The weather is temperate, the water is warm. Oh, there's that annoying light house that, when conditions are right, slashes light into the night of a room and "whooms" so incessantly that you have to sleep with a pillow over your head to try and drown out the sound. But, responsibilities are few. With very few invasions of privacy, it's perfect.

It can't last. It might with somebody else, but not with Leda. Soon, a family from New York shows up at the resort, and, to her, it feels like an invasion. She watches them suspiciously, as they talk loud and curse casually. Vasilli (Panos Koronis) and his young wife Callie (Dagmara Dominczyk) are the ostensible heads of the family, but there's also Toni (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) and his wife Nina (Dakota Johnson) and their daughter Elena (Athena Martin Anderson). Things get off on the wrong foot when Callie asks Leda if she'll move to another lounge chair so the family can all be together and Leda haughtily refuses. There's a lot of stink-eyes and muttering just within ear-shot, but Leda has been eying the family before.

At the same time, Leda watches them—and director Maggie Gyllenhaal keeps us locked in on her point-of-view so that it almost becomes claustrophobic—she starts to think back to when she was a young mother (Jessie Buckley takes over as Leda at this point) with two small girls. Two very needy little girls that tax Leda's time and her patience, taking her away from her translation work which takes a lot of concentration. There are little parallels between what she sees and what she remembers. And she catches every nuance of Nina's interaction with her child—the hesitations, the annoyances, the impatience, the reluctant giving-in—all to which she can relate.

Leda's "Kravitzing" does have a good result; when Nina is distracted by something, little Elena goes missing, and the family starts to panic, freaking out rather than trying to figure out where Elena could have wandered off. They're not organized at all. Leda, seeing Nina's distress and remembering a time when she experienced the same thing, assists in the search, and ultimately does find Elena to the relief and gratitude of the family. The earlier touchiness evaporates and Leda is empathetic enough that the family fairly embraces her. Nina, in particular, is drawn to Leda, seeing her as a kindred spirit who understands the pressures and toils of raising young kids. She does. But, Leda's approach is to internalize it as a burden, one that can come to a breaking point if allowed to fester.

Thank God for Olivia Colman. The Lost Daughter would be a very tough slog if it weren't for the excellent work done by her and the rest of the cast. Not that the movie is dull. It's that you have to spend so much time in Leda's head. It's a situation shared with the character. Leda is so internalized that there shouldn't be much of an exterior at all. All that studying, translating, her inner life is so much more fascinating to her than her external one. But, she indulges it to the detriment of those around her, be they friends, colleagues...family. And her obvious grasping for approval in the young Leda scenes contrasts with the less satisfying, messy, chaotic world of raising a child. Who gets acclaim for that?

It's a tough thing to raise children. It is not easy and there can't be a consistent plan or syllabus to cling to. So, Leda lives her life in her head, playing mind-games with herself and others, just her against the world. At times you see what the character is doing and wonder why on Earth do that? I have suspicions—which have to do with control and punishment and teaching lessons—but to delve deeper would be to take some of the shocks out of it, and deprive the viewer of questions that will inevitably arise.

And that would be a pity because Colman wears Leda's neurosis so much on her sleeve that it's fascinating to see her mercurial performance playing across her face. At times, you're aware that not even she understands why she does what she does and the film becomes less about the issues she has with the world than about her own, and how she imposes them on the world, with the inevitable consequences, intended or otherwise, that become self-fulfilled prophecies. It's a psychological adjunct to all those Kubrick movies where smart people make bad choices, intellect be damned, and gives truth to the old saw that people can be too smart for their own good.

 

It's like the thing I read on Twitter today that was attributed to Nicola Tesla: “One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.” The Lost Daughter walks that razor edge, fortunately, with Olivia Colman's nimbleness.

The Favourite (2018)

We All Gotta Serve Somebody (And The First One Now Will Later Be Last)
or
All About Evening the Score...

So, imagine, if you will, that Stanley Kubrick had directed his Barry Lyndon more in the same style of his Dr. Strangelove, with a hint of Fellini's casting abilities, and a bit of the insouciance for time and place of Baz Luhrmann, and you'll have an idea of what it's like to watch The Favourite (note the King's English spelling), the latest film of director Yorgos Lanthimos—who made Dogtooth and The Lobster—but latched onto a script that's been bumping around since 1998, just waiting for "the times" to accept it.

Well, these are them times, with the entire world saturated with egotistical no-accounts (in both political and business circles) and the lackeys, brown-noser's and boot-lickers who circle through their well-appointed revolving doors. It's a comedy based on historical fact with most of the kind of juicy speculation they wouldn't dare put in an historical mini-series on the BBC. One wonder never mistake it for that.

Me, I've wanted to see this thing since I saw Emma Stone do this in the trailer (which I must have seen six times)

Queen Anne (Olivia Coleman) struggles to be a happy Queen in 1708. England is at war with France, her husband, Prince George of Denmark, has just died, and the Lords are revolting—divided now between Tories and Whigs, they are spatting over the raising of taxes to pay for England's expenses (led by Robert Harley—played Nicholas Hoult, "The Beast" of the Young X-Men—although the Whigs were actually IN FAVOR of raising taxes). There's a war going on and despite their loyalty to the Queen, they see no good reason why they should be paying for it. Her childhood friend and confidante, the Lady Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz), the Duchess of Marlborough, advocates for the increases, and as she has the Queen's ear, up the taxes will go. 

The Queen is not only grieving, she suffers from melancholia and the disease of Kings—gout—and her grief over her husband's death has only compounded what she emptiness she feels from seventeen miscarriages and still-births—she has an infestation of 17 rabbits to remind her of each and every one. (I mentioned this was a comedy, didn't I?)

But, it's not like she's missing the conflict of family-life in any sense—into the mix comes Lady Sarah's cousin, Abigail Hill (Emma Stone) who has fallen on hard times and a great deal of horse-flop. Her family is bankrupt, owing to the gambling debts owed by her father, and she has come to the palace in "diminished circumstances" to seek employment and to try and make something of herself, rather than be consigned to the streets.

She is, instead, consigned to the kitchen as a scullery-maid—where she is at the bottom of the pecking order. She is kept away from the Queen (as most are) by the manipulations of Lady Sarah—when Harley approached her "to make a statement to the Queen", she shoots back "State it to me. I love a comedy. Is there cake?"—but, when the Queen's gout flares up painfully, Abigail goes to the nearby woods and gathers herbs, makes a salve, and lies her way into the Queen's bed-chamber to apply it. She is found and ordered to be lashed. But, before too much pain is inflicted, Sarah spares her, as the Queen has been comforted. Abigail may prove useful.

"Is there cake?"

That has been the intention all along. Abigail is made Lady Sarah's assistant, and, as such, she is given much more access to the Queen and her own quarters, away from the jealous maids. Sarah also takes her under her wing—"Let's shoot something!"—acquainting her with Anne's daily life and needs, the better for her to serve. But, she doesn't tell her everything, though—such as that Sarah is having an affair with the Queen, something that Abigail discovers quite by accident when she is in the Queen's chambers looking for books.

Noticing her rise in status, Harley approaches Abigail with the task of influencing the Queen in matters of his interest, and for providing any details in her (or Lady Churchill's) thinking that might allow him to take advantage of the situation and out-maneuver one or both of them. Abigail initially refuses, but, to find a way between Anne and Sarah, she agrees on the condition that Harley arrange a marriage between her and a constant would-be suitor, the Baron Samuel Masham (Joe Alwyn). Despite Abigail being a commoner, Harley agrees to use his influence wherever possible. 

Abigail, in turn, seduces the Queen and maneuvers around Sarah, making her absent for a time, thus allowing Harley to influence the Queen both on taxes and the marriage of Abigail and Masham, making her a baroness, another step higher in the court.

There may be a war going on in France, but it's nothing compared to the battle royale going on in the palace. The two cousins are constantly plotting using their wiles to seduce male and female alike to gain a foothold in the court, and, given the Queen's moods, it is never assured footing. Each is in danger of slipping—at nay given moment—of losing the advantage they have. There is a mounting escalation of stakes and intimacy to the plots with the ultimate price being...well, let's face it, it will always be servitude.

Be careful what you wish for.

It's a deeply cynical movie about manipulating all sides trying to maintain the status quid pro quo in a perpetually changing environment. And director Lanthimos keeps everything a bit on the surreal side, filming with perspective-warping wide-angle lenses to keep the very perpendicular halls and chambers at looming, encroaching angles that threaten to fall and envelop the players in their machinations.

Anybody who's been watching the squall of end-of-year awards, trinkets, tchotchkes, and doo-dads being handed out by "the authority committees" knows that the players are top-notch. Stone has made a career of the telling detail that defines what is going on in her characters' minds. But, in the past, they've been forthright characters who've been transparent in their attitudes and actions and how they're expressed. Here, Stone plays someone who is just-plain devious, only giving vent to what she thinks when someone's back is turned.

Weisz, on the other hand, turns in a performance that is so opaque that she barely betrays any genuine emotion at all—and if she does, it would do well not to trust it. But it is Coleman who is the revelation. The last few years, she has been on the edges of productions, as the curiosity that gains notice but one can never quite place. Now, given a part of some heft, she dominates the scenes she's in—perhaps because she is without restraint—showing the weakness of Anne, while also knowing full well who's in charge—even when she's not in charge of herself. It's a funny, dangerous performance. No matter what transpires in the wars surrounding her, she is untouchable, and Coleman plays out the benefits and down-sides of it, in bizarrely comic way, which can evoke barks of laughter or pity, even when is not sure when it is actually deserved.

All hail.

Portrait of Queen Anne (1707-1714)