There’s lots of screaming, shooting, shouting, tumbling, and fruit-throwing-at-naked-bodies in the first teaser trailer for Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest, The Favourite. “This is madness,” Nicholas Hoult’s wigged and powdered man says. It’s total royal madness of the highest order, and it looks insanely delightful.

Rachel Weisz reunites with her The Lobster director for what surely seems to be his least demented film yet – by the sound of the plot and look of the trailer, I wager this won’t make you feel as dreadfully depressed as, say, The Killing of a Sacred Deer did. But who knows with this guy! Weisz plays Sarah, the companion to Olivia Coleman’s (who was also in The Lobster) mad Queen Anne – “But you are mad,” Sarah says as Anne responds with a girlish giggle. Then Emma Stone‘s Abigail arrives, who Sarah takes under her wing. This looks like the devlishly kooky and absurd period piece one would expect from the Greek filmmaker, and as a fan, I can’t wait. Here’s the full synopsis:

Early 18th century. England is at war with the French. Nevertheless, duck racing and pineapple eating are thriving. A frail Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) occupies the throne and her close friend Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) governs the country in her stead while tending to Anne’s ill health and mercurial temper. When a new servant Abigail (Emma Stone) arrives, her charm endears her to Sarah. Sarah takes Abigail under her wing and Abigail sees a chance at a return to her aristocratic roots. As the politics of war become quite time consuming for Sarah, Abigail steps into the breach to fill in as the Queen’s companion. Their burgeoning friendship gives her a chance to fulfill her ambitions and she will not let woman, man, politics or rabbit stand in her way.

It’s worth nothing that this is the second film Lanthimos has directed from a script not his own. The film is written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, and is based on Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough who shared a powerful and influential friendship with Queen Anne of Great Britain and introduced her cousin, Abigail Hill to court. With Lanthimos and this cast at the helm – which also includes Joe Alwyn and Mark Gatiss – consider this high at the top of my most anticipated. The Favourite arrives in theaters November 23, a prime awards-season spot.

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