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The King’s Favorite, originally called Diane de Poitiers in France, is a 2022 French two-part miniseries starring Isabelle Adjani as the famous royal mistress of King Henry II. It still hasn’t been released in the U.S., but I was able to watch it nonetheless through the magic of VPN (and you can too! just, no English subtitles) and people, it’s WACKY. Medieval Times Sex Dungeon is waaaaay too accurate as the costume theme here.
The costumes were officially designed by French designer Cyril Fontaine, who’s only done a few obscure-to-me period productions (Through the Mill, White Saigon, Rasputin with Gérard Depardieu), while Adjani’s were by Dominique Borg (Camille Claudel, Brotherhood of the Wolf, Artemisia) and Stéphane Couvé-Bonnaire; but a news report says they were designed by Maxime Rebière and made by Borg/Couvé-Bonnaire, so I’m confused. It appears the design directive was Goth Renaissance for Adjani/Poitiers, with chain mail and head necklaces galore; following the real Diane‘s penchant for only wearing black and white, everyone gets color coded.
I can’t recap every single plot point, but I also can’t help but share the many, many “highlights,” so here’s my wander through The King’s Favorite. Today, the second half of episode one (here’s the first half):
Diane tries to get ahead of the game and goes voluntarily to talk to the main Inquisitor. He’s very suspicious of her beauty regime, which she says is rainwater and gold instead of crediting the dermal filler industry as she should. Side note, Adjani continues to be stunningly beautiful AND can move her eyebrows, which impresses me, but you can just TELL she’s a mature woman (she was 67ish when this was filmed). Diane wears a weird knit baby’s cap for the occasion.
François and Anne are woken by someone attaching a Protestant pamphlet to their door, François is PISSED. Anne sleeps in a weirdly over-seamed, front- and back-laced-opening nightgown.
Diane goes back to the Inquisitor, this time wearing yet another from her vast wardrobe of chain-mail head necklaces.
At a joust, Henry asks for Diane’s colors even though she’d insisted he ask Queen Eleanor, who is pissed. Diane wears a hat straight out of a 15th-century German portrait:
This couple is among the dignitaries at the joust; I have no idea who they are, but I do raise my eyebrows at the Scot in the kilt. Yes, France and Scotland had strong alliances and King James V of Scotland came to France to marry Marie de Guise, but as we’ve learned, plaid kilts were only maaaaaybe a thing in this century.
Anne does more scheming.
Henry is going to be married to Catherine de Medici. Diane looks at Catherine’s portrait, which is cool in that it’s based on a François Clouet painting (Clouet being THE French court painter of the time), shows an actual historically accurate dress and hairstyle, and doesn’t look like a paint-by-numbers job. Not so cool is that Catherine is far too pretty and won’t actually wear anything historically accurate when she arrives in person.
The actress playing Catherine is far too pretty for the role. She has ALL THIS HAIR that at first looks like dreadlocks.
Catherine’s wedding outfit is vaguely reasonable, Henry looks like he’s wearing a 1980s swing jacket.
After the implied wedding, Henry and Catherine do one of the STUPIDEST DANCES EVER. It would be worth watching this entire thing just for this dance. They start with that head roll thing that modern dancers do:
…then move on to the sweetheart maneuver:
…and end WITH A DIP:
Diane watchdogs them throughout and starts crying. Her outfit is amazeballs from a carnivale, fancy-dress perspective; at the same time, it’s Too Much and just reinforces her age (instead of just letting her be beautiful, they have to overdo it and over-bling her).
It’s clearly an interpretation of this portrait of Diane:
EVERYONE comes to the official shagging, including Diane and Anne in masquerade masks.
Henry whispers to Diane that he doesn’t want to shag Catherine; Diane tells him to think of someone he does want, and the two have Meaningful Hand Sexytimes.
Stay tuned tomorrow for more of The King’s Favorite aka Diane de Poitiers!
The portrait with the moon crescent headdress is probably late 16th or 17th century. Iirc multiple versions exist (I should check that out) and one is on display at the Château de Chaumont (which Diane de Poitiers owned when Catherine de Medici became regent, but in which she almost never came)
I feel like that mask is meant to be a call back to the mask scene with Adjani in Queen Margot. I feel like one of the points of this whole series to showcase how “similar” Adjani looks to herself in that movie made over 30 years ago.
Agreed on the Queen Margot callbacks!
The actress who play Caterina de’medici, and I use the Italian form for a reason, is really Italian. She’s Gaia Girace, better know for her role in L’Amica Geniale, My Brilliant Friend, and she’s totally miscast.
Catherine was blonde, plump and Florentine, Gaia is black, skinny and Neapolitan, but she’s a nice accent