As the freezing winter months seem to be dragging on and on, I have found myself watching more movies than ever. After spending many Sunday nights on the couch with a movie on the screen,  I have spent a refreshing amount of time staying away from movies that make me want to turn off the screen. But as the minutes of The Favourite passed by, I learned it was most certainly not a movie that I would ever enjoy watching under any circumstance.

After recently watching the Oscars, one of the movies on my watch-list has been 2018’s The Favourite. Lead actress Olivia Colman won Best Leading Actress for her role as Queen Anne in the film, so naturally, I believed that it would be a movie full of excellence, but my initial expectations could not have been more opposite as black from white.

In the film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, a tale of personal and political jealousy is told throughout the time period and placement of 18th-century England. Queen Anne lives alongside Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz), and the two share a relationship more unique and confusing than any I have ever seen before. When cousin Abigail (Emma Stone) comes along to serve the queen, jealousy breaks down the walls of the castle, and the fight for favoritism from Queen Anne ruins the lives of all involved.

As the queen demands constant attention and help throughout her daily life, the fight for her time between Sarah and Abigail proves dangerous. Men, husbands, servants, and the 17 rabbits representing the 17 stillbirths of Anne are all thrown into the mess building up in the castle.

Being a film by Yorgos Lanthimos, the movie certainly entails twisted humor and strange mannerisms throughout the personalities of each character, but The Favourite was not one to succeed in these unique categories. The events taking place often made me cringe and want to tear my eyes away from the screen before me. Many times, my hand reached out for the remote, and my fingers struggled to keep from pressing the power off button. I kept thinking that it had to get better, but much to my disappointment, it never did.

Although the plot and film itself lost my interest after the first few minutes, the acting was the only thing holding me down to my place on the couch. The emotions of the characters easily flowed through their words, facial expressions, and movements throughout the scenes. Colman’s award of Best Leading Actress was deserved, but the movie itself should not be receiving so much positive attention.

Not only was the plot line purely confusing and eccentric, but the movie was impossible to follow at times. Understanding the words falling from the mouths of the characters was a difficult task alone, but trying to interpret the meaning behind their mumbles at the same time proved a challenge I could have gone without.

As I continued holding down the volume-up button on the remote, my patience with the film slowly wore down until I found myself nearly asleep on the couch in my dark living room.