Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I'm a big fan of historical literature. I read a lot of historical novels. Especially English history. "Wolf Hall" for instance. I loved both books and the PBS series based on them as well. But Yorgos Lanthimos is no Hillary Mantle. Saw his film with a friend and we both hated it. Not only did I not care about the characters, I found them loathsome and I could have cared less what happened to them. Or if any of it was true. I especially wondered where the naked fat man giggleing and holding his penus while dodging orange peels thrown at him by members of Parliament came from. So I decided to find out how much of the plot of "The Favorite" is historically accurate. You can do this too; Google, Wickepedia, History vs Hollywood, whatever. True: Anne was fat, dull, indecisive, sickly and died of gout. True: she lost seventeen children. False: There were no bunnies hopping 'bout her bedroom in memory of said children. Rabbits were considered either food or vermin; either way, they would have been shot. True: Anne and Sarah were friends from childhood, Sarah dominated Anne and frequently advised and or spoke for her. True: Sarah got her cousin Abigale a position at court when the family lost their fortune due to Abigale's father's gambling. True the two women gradually became rivals for Anne's affection. False: The rest. "While there have been rumors of sexual relationships between both Queen Anne and Lady Sarah, and Queen Anne and Abigail Hill, most historians and biographers reject this notion. The movie uses the fictionalized love triangle to heighten the drama and add another dimension to the rivalry between Anne and Sarah." historyvshollywood.com. And speaking of sex and Anne's seventeen children, where was her husband? True: Alive during the time of the film. False: She's a widow. No she's not! He's alive although ill and right there in Anne's bedroom! And given the fact they had had seventeen children, I think it's safe to conclude they had a pretty "prolific sexual history". And "Biographers cite that Anne was a woman with a strong sense of Christian morality who was devoted to her husband. She shared a room with him and did not ever leave his bed in all his years of dwindling health. Thus, it would have been logistically very difficult for Anne to carry on extramarital affairs." In addition, the film not treating such relationships as taboo is unrealistic for the time, something director Yorgos Lanthimos admitted to approaching with little regard for historical accuracy." So to sum up: Mr. Lanthimos made a film with lesbian sex scenes to titillate the audience and sell tickets. That's not art; that's soft porn. I would rather have seen something with characters I cared about which gave me an insight into what it was like to be those women living at that time in history. I imagine they were more interesting than the film was. By the way...I never could find out what inspired the scene with the giggling naked fat guy dodging orange peels., but I didn't care about him either.