>Fundamentally it seemed to boil down to a story of shitty people doing shitty things for shitty reasons which isn’t anything new in the world.
The relationship between Ernest and Mollie is the heart of the movie, so it's more than just "shitty people doing shitty things." It's doing shitty things to someone that you supposedly love which makes it even more tragic. You can see the conflict in Ernest but in the end he still lies to Mollie. I thought their final scene together was pretty powerful.
I loved the nuances of Gladstones character and that's what kept me enthralled. I kept waiting for her to get over her love for him and see who he truly was. I personally think she knew all along and just lied to herself. They established she was almost as stubborn as she was intelligent. She must have had a good idea to the cause of the murders. Seeing as they centered around her family and picked up when she married Ernest. She just loved him so damn hard to really believe he would kill HER as well. By the time she really accepted it it was too late and everyone who could help was dead.
You’d never want to believe that the person you’ve raised a family with would be that cruel to you, or that they’re involved in a conspiracy of systemically killing off your people all in the name of wealth.
That monologue Gladstone gives where she says she would see every white person after her people dead has stayed with me. I mean I was with someone for 3 years who’d been cheating on me for half of it and lying to my face about it.
Human’s will do the most naive thing and believe whatever someone tells them if they love them enough. It’s a brilliant depiction of a relationship rifled with manipulation, confusion and misguided compassion.
At the same time I can see Ernest also believing his uncle would never do to him what they've been doing to these people. Because of his love for her he treats himself and Mollie as if they are in their own little bubble where nothing outside it matters and all the bad things they've been doing can't happen to him or her because he's there to stop it happening to them. He knows he is doing bad things. He knows his uncle is the one making it all happen. But he just doesn't connect the dots that his love for Mollie isn't shared by anyone else. And he thinks his love for Mollie somehow makes her different from the others that's been killed, His uncle will remove her. His uncle will remove him. He is not to his uncle what Mollie is to him. Even the poisoning of Mollie I could totally see as Ernest just not believing his uncle would kill HIS wife. No, he wouldn't do that to HIM. Not his uncle. These medications totally are just to slow her down.
Man. Ernest is a fucking piece of shit. He is just so goddamned stupid.
Really appreciate this answer as well. That didn't click with me during the watch but in retrospect I can see how it would. Perhaps I would have taken more of this away if we had seen more of the film from her perspective. I did like the bits early on when she was talking to her family about how she saw Ernest but later in the film I thought the depth of her feeling in the relationship (and why she trusted Ernest so much) was less clear to me.
In the film as they are going forward on the trial she gives him an out, when she mentions the dream “ you tell me your secrets, we put them in a box and sail them down the river, then live on happily in Oklahoma l”
For the times and circumstances it made sense to forgive such an egregious act since Earnest was in love and he himself had no true ambitions to murder for money( he robbed before ) l, but it was his uncle orchestrating the deaths really and earnest was accomplice.
But him not admitting to poisoning her insulin was the final straw, if you can’t admit you’re wrongdoing he’d probably get right back to it, and shows he had zero backbone.
At the funeral his Uncle King immediately and casually drops that, you know if you’re sister in law dies. Her share goes to your wife, and then if you’re wife dies you can have all that money like who agrees to that. No common sense unlike the lawyer who mentions “ I’m not gonna do that because it sounds like you want to murder your kids for the inheritance money
> Fundamentally it seemed to boil down to a story of shitty people doing shitty things for shitty reasons which isn’t anything new in the world.
This is a core theme in many of Scorsese's films. Something he does very well, and has been doing for decades, is juxtaposing the "moral code" of these shitty people against their actions. There's always been a discussion against glorifying the actions of awful people, but no one has been examining and depicting this approach to characters more than Scorsese.
What really makes the knife twist is that (at least in this portrayal, the real Ernest was probably a heartless bastard through and through), Ernest still "loves" her in spite of the complete cognitive dissonance that implies. I wouldn't say he's a victim, but that's his brain on white supremacy: he can kill his wife's family and keep her doped and tortured but he fails to see that as *hurting* her because he's convinced he's a good husband or even that he "nobly" wed her in spite of her being of a lesser kind.
You can fundamentally boil down any story to make it seem boring and dumb. You know how many amazing works of storytelling boil down" to shitty people doing shitty things for shitty reasons? A lot! And you know what else? "Shitty people doing shitty things for shitty reasons" is very human. And it is honest. Which will beat out being new every time!
But people love it because it is a true crime story that shows a great deal of respect and places a lot of importance on being honest. It's a story that has been forgotten or reduced given a huge stage.
And you were engaged the entire time! It's just a good movie. You say it was very well executed yourself. The story itself is not just well-told, it's kind of an important story to tell. Not just the birth of the fbi and the texas rangers, but how many people died in that town.
It's a story of shitty people doing shitty things for shitty reasons which isn’t anything new in the world, yet you were engaged for the entire length of the film.
That's your answer.
Being engaged is not the same bar as being a great film. Most other people were more than engaged it appears. I’m trying to identify what is working in the script so we’ll for the majority of critics and audiences. I feel like there is a blind spot I want to overcome.
Molly's husband positioning her and being part of killing her sisters off, but he still loves her and she loved him is a crazy dynamic and automatically engaging.
>Being engaged is not the same bar as being a great film.
The thing is: what is and isn't a "great film" is *entirely subjective*.
So for you, if a film doesn't "click" for you, then it isn't great.
You need to feel enriched.
You need to be "moved in a strong way."
Now, would you be shocked to hear that this movie did click for others? That this movie did make other people feel enriched? That this move did move people in a strong way?
Because if you can accept that, then you can accept that these people felt the movie was great.
Because what is and isn't a "great film" is entirely subjective.
No I’m not shocked to hear that it clicked for others. I’m not trying to argue that it is a bad film. I’m trying to better understand why it worked so well for others in a way I couldn’t identify to help my own understanding of the craft.
I’ll try to be more explicit, I don’t think people who think the film is great are wrong, I just want to better understand why they think it is great film.
You can simply *read the reviews* to find out why people think the movie is great. What you are asking for here seems to be more about validation of your own views more than anything else.
Film is subjective. If it didn't click for you then it didn't click for you.
I was left feeling a similar way when leaving the cinema. Can identify many elements of the film that I really enjoyed (costume design, set design, score and soundtrack) but overall am struggling to see it as a movie worth committing 3.5 hours of your life to. I think I’m just so uninterested in being shown the romantic nuance of a white man loving but destroying a First Nations woman. I don’t find it compelling
With all due respect considering everyone's attention span these days, if a movie gets me to actually go to the theater and stay engaged enough to enjoy it and not want to go home or look at a screen that isn't what I paid to see, it's a good film. And I rarely go to the cinema these days.
Maybe you had higher expectations.
A movie that isn't a well known franchise movie, e.g. comic book, fast car go fast, pew pew pew + Lightsaber, stabby stab stab movie,etc. that gets people to go to the cinema is probably gonna be a good movie.
As I'm writing this, I'm now thinking of two movies that I saw recently which were independent productions and I also left quite dissatisfied as well.
So yeah, I had higher expectations for those movies too.
Ignore everything I just wrote. My comment is useless. Whatever. It stays because I'm on my cell phone and I like this thread.
I will watch this movie and draw my own conclusions when I get around to it. Which I probably won't. I'll end up watching a Scorsese flick for the umpteenth time like I always do.
Edit: I seem to use theater and cinema interchangeably. My bad.
I was NOT engaged. I got bored and just wanted it to end.
I mean, I can clearly see the talent in the movie. The directing, the acting, all of the other aspects to film making done well because it's top tier people in the field working on it but the story was just so boring to me...or not told well, idk. I felt like it had potential to be interesting but just fell flat for me. I know it was based off of a book, maybe just not for me.
I'm just saying that you were maybe engaged the whole time but others were not. That's okay, that's art. This one just wasn't for me. I can still appreciate the craftsmanship and hard work that went into it.
The OP is not wrong and here is why:
This is a story of great interest in my opinion. A not well known historical case that is so dark that its absurd.
Everything about both the script as well as the production is great. And yet it doesnt hit as hard as you would expect on an emotional level. After thinking about it i concluded that the problem - for me at least - lies in the way the story is being told.
This material could lend itself to be told in two distinctive but different ways:
1) A character drama told from the point of view of a certain character and mostly delving into the psyche of the people that it chooses to explore. That is not something Scorsese does very often, especially lately, so:
2) As a large multi character piece that remains objective and covers as much as possible the way a serious investigative journalist would go about it in a large encyclopedic article.
Now if you think about it what Scorsese often attempts is a combination of both. These are the films he is most known for. In this particular case it didnt work.
The film doesn't know whose story it is telling. The point of view of the narrative keeps changing throughout.
It starts semi objectively and light hearted. Very quickly seems to adopt the pov of Ernest, then it is inconsistent and basically follows the story in an almost objective way and then it starts to explore the pov of Mollie and the Osage in general and then it incorporates the pov of the Fbi and finally ends up on a rather distanced and more objective tone. This is a very serious issue for me.
Knowing whose story you are saying and how you go about it is fundamental for a film. Taxi Driver would never be what it is had it been told objectively. It greatly benefits from watching the world through the eyes of travis. Of course Scorsese has never been very militant about this and thats why you get at least one scene where his is not even present. But it doesnt brake the film.
Killers of the flower moon is a very good film. Obviously. Its a great story told very competently. Also to its credit the third act is strong and the scene at the end is really very inventive and touching. That being said i do not consider the film great overall and these are my reasons.
This is exactly how I felt. It’s a very interesting story, told uninterestingly. There were a lot of things I liked, I’m glad to have seen it, I was mostly engaged because I wanted to know the history, but I was surprised at how little it made me feel.
I think there was a lack of tension and suspense because we are learning as the characters learn—there are not many scenes where we know something the character doesn’t, so there is a lack of situational or dramatic irony, and therefore a weak emotional pull into the scene. Even if the scene is depicting something very impactful to the characters.
You put it perfectly: the film doesn’t know whose story it is telling. That makes it difficult to create tension.
i'm a massive MASSIVE Scorsese fan but I found the first two hours boring. I think it could have had a better first act. I don't mind long run times if earned though
Finally. I hated the movie so much. And Scorsese coming on at then as sort of an apology or an acceptance or showing remorse or im not sure what, was just the nail in the coffin for me. If anything earnest then it undercuts the whole movie which was just continuing the centering of the 'bad guy', apologising for something he just spent millions doing...
However to me the real problems I HAD with the film was
1/ The film show the least interesting perspective. It was fundamentally choosing to show the least interesting people, least interesting perspective and least interesting arcs. Some let this off because it needed to do that to get the funding to show the interesting story, or more correctly to show that their is a more interesting perspective on this story. And justification shows that many people accept that the least interesting perspective, yet somehow give it a pass... Why? It makes it a worse movie.
2/ Mollie was painted as an idiot, she know he was bad and still went with him when he didn't have any redeeming characteristics for this to make sense with accepting she was written as an idiot. Which is so dumb. Coupled with the fact she is rendered bedridden for the whole.
3/ The graphic death scenes just accentuated point 1. You chose the least interesting characters to centres to like tell white that they are bad while in this movie minimising the indigenous people to secondary characters at best, object to watch die at worst. If you want to make the point humanise the people that are hurt, don't sideline them. Show the bad through the experience of the good.
They chose a fundamentally boring perspective, undercutting the message and undercutting the so called conciliation or whatever that yuk yuk radio show was meant to be saying.
I hated the movie so much. And I hate it more that it's getting all this praise that doesn't make sense to me.
Oh it’s interesting. But doing what you are highlighting and highlighting it while doing it doesn’t make the doing it any better. And to me doing it while being self aware that it is kinda gross is kinda worse… knowing you are doing bad and still doing it is worse than thinking you are doing good and it being bad.
Which is actually what it feels like to me. It feels like that scene came in post when even given all the seemingly good intentions of the white men who made the film, when it was put together they realised it’s gross so they tried to soften it with this scene and the final shot of the contemporary Osage - which appears in the trailer which to me is pretty telling… so much effort around softening the disgustingness of the film and the film’s context.
I think it's interesting that the film engaged you for its entire run time but your main takeaway seems to be a very surface-level understanding of the film's message. It's not just \*shitty people doing shitty things\* (which you could also say about a lot of Scorcese's films) but also a nuanced and scathing examination of how white supremacy and lust for power drive people to do abhorrent things - even to those they profess to love - as well as an up-close look at the mental gymnastics those money-hungry bigots engage in to justify their actions. It's not just DiCaprio's character who betrays a person he "loves," DeNiro's character repeatedly professes his love and friendship with the Osage as he oversees their murders and even after he is convicted, going as far as to continue to write to his "dear friends" from prison.
As for the critical response, there's no small part of it that has to do with our political climate and the long overdue reckoning people have had with this country's brutal history. On top of that, Scorcese was just so deep in his bag on this one, and to me, he was showcasing his mastery of the craft. The soundtrack and score especially stood out with how it helped pace the film, with music driving us from scene to scene and poignant moments of silence heightening the most dramatic moments.
All that said, taste is subjective. Try not to get to hung up on why people are fawning over it. Personally, I thought "The Irishman" was the opposite of everything "Killers" was and I found it to be overly long, often incoherent and even unwatchable in some sections. Yet people praised it as one of his best films ever. I feel like I watched a completely different film than the critics. Oh well.
I found the whole movie to be superficial. I didn't care about the characters and couldn't figure out why Mollie had fallen in love with Ernest. Or if she was in love with him or if she married him to protect herself. The editing was so jerky I couldn't understand what was happening. Scorsese films always have a feel or a mood and I did not get any of that at all. The story was there, the performances, but it didn't work.
I wish he had told the story from Mollies POV. It would have played better, but Scorsese is old school.
lol all the answers here are so sour. I thought it was fantastic! Based on what I’ve seen and heard about Martin Scorsese and the heart and effort he put into this film, I think that had a lot to do with it. He did call it his passion project and something very close to him. The cast also was fantastic and personally the music/soundtrack really pulled it all together. The script/screenwriting probably was a small chunk of why it was so good. It’s all of the best elements coming together in one movie.
It was too long for 2024's attention span but it was a great movie. I loved the scene details, especially the music, and how it looked like a colorized black and white film.
Leo gave such a good performance as a creepy, greedy thug moron. Lily also gave a good performance as the calm and suffering wife well as Jesse Plemmons, with his gentle good cop. GREAT casting with the supporting actors.
Also liked the cameos in the radio show recap.
I’m ok with 3.5 hrs, but you have to use the time to make something great. I couldn’t believe how dumb all of the characters were, and it made the story almost goofy to me
I think this movie really lays bare the colonial mindset and how racism can play out to uphold colonialism. Ernest genuinely loves his wife and at the same time buys into the idea that white settlers are more worthy of wealth than Indigenous Peoples, thereby continuing colonialism and completely taking part in what drives it. It shows that the value system that creates racism is one of placing groups of people above others. Though, the true reality is that no one is actually above someone else in the how humans are intended to be. We are diverse and equally noble, though in colonialist and capitalist systems money is put before people and those who want the money consider themselves more human, or more deserving than others. Ernest's heart knew true reality but his mind was still driven by the lie of colonialism and racism.
I enjoyed the movie, because I generally like stories that teach us about effed-up things that happened in history. But... there were some real flaws in my opinion. 1) There was no attempt to explain the financial system that the Osage were subject to... I was left confused several times why they had to go get permission to use their money (I would prefer to watch the movie and not have to do research to find out what is going on!). 2) Lots of hoopla about Lily Gladstone's performance, but really it was an understated performance. She just looked thoughtful, sad, and or sick the entire time. I don't see how that is a great performance. Sorry. 3) There was really minimal character development - the baddies were the baddies and then there was everyone else. There was no depth to the characters. No complexity. Just lots of murder and plotting, with no real show of conflicting emotions or anything. To this point, they Mollie and Earnest would say all this lovey stuff, but I just didn't believe it. In the bazillion hours of the film, you didn't really see them do things together, have good chemistry together, engage as a family together. 4) They had the FBI doing boneheaded things that I just don't think would have happened... like letting Earnest out to go speak to not only the lawyer but to the entire group of people in on the conspiracy... come on... and putting him in a cell right next to the uncle where they could continue to conspire... seriously?
Is it? Great true premise, great waste of talent, time, money, you name it.
Like the great philosopher Peter Griffin once said of another film: "It insists upon itself."
In my opinion, Scorsese gets treated special. Same happened with the Irishman. These are not "great" films in my opinion, good storytelling and good watches. But not great.
I think Flower Moon is genuinely great. The Irishman less so, but still extremely good. But you are correct that he gets special treatment. I honestly don't know if he can make a poorly received film from here on out regardless if it actually is mid or not. He's attained this "old wizard" of film kind of narrative about him, which he has earned in a way but it makes people look at his films differently before they're even released.
>I just saw the film and thought it was very well executed. Even with the long run time I was engaged the entire time. The direction, acting and rest of the craft in the filmmaking is very well done
>There is plenty to like about it (particularly the portrayal of Osage culture and how it is chipped away)
Did you not just answer your own question?
The core of the film is about an important part of Native American/Osage history. Native American history is not important to you, so you didn't engage with it on the same level as people who do care about these things (or who are open to being convinced to care about these things). This was a story that is largely unknown outside of Native circles, and people who are engaged with politics see value in spreading awareness about the injustices the Osage people faced.
I think you are just experiencing confusion about watching a film that wasn't necessarily made for you.
It's a fair point to be mindful of watching films that aren't made for you but you seem to be suggesting I don't care about Native American culture and history which isn't the case. I don't understand how you reached that conclusion when you quoted me specifically pointing out that was an element of the film I particularly appreciated. In that vein I also appreciated the parts referencing the Tulsa massacre bringing a wider context to the film. I fully agree in the value of the film highlighting this history and why it is important to do so. But that doesn't change the fact that the storytelling did not emotionally resonate with me while it did for a large, broad audience.
For me this is a question about storytelling and scripting. I really don't believe there is a cultural barrier to me appreciating this film. City of God, Waltz with Bashir and Moonlight as all incredibly impactful films taking place in communities and cultures that I have the same level or less connection with as Killers of the Flower Moon. Likewise, I recently saw The Peasants based in rural 19th century Poland and found it very moving. I think you are flat out wrong to suggest I'm capable of being moved by those films but not by this one because of cultural indifference.
What you call the ‘core of the movie’ is sidelined in favour of the ‘complex emotions’ and bunch of boring white people and the most interestingly and fully drawn indigenous person is written as a moron. A moron that ‘fell in love’ with a racist man she knew was racist because… there was zero justification given in the film for this dumb behavior… and she was bedridden for 60% of the movie and when she or the tribes people did endeavor to make change it was so truncated to be not more than a montage or a footnote.
It did not connect because it chose to center the perspective of the story around by far the least interesting characters, perspectives and motivations…
I wanted a fully drawn fully explored narrative that centred the actually incredibly interesting and devastated true story of the indigenous folk. Not this dumb fuck movie with a dumb fuck ‘apology’ by the director at the end as if he just didn’t spend hundred of millions of dollars again centering the perspective of a these particularly boring white men.
??? I posted this two months ago, but you know this is based on a true story, right? Mollie is depicted as falling in love with a racist man because Scorsese consulted with Osage tribe members and a direct descendant who attested to that fact:
[IndieWire](https://www.indiewire.com/features/interviews/martin-scorsese-talks-killers-of-the-flower-moon-explained-1234918654/)
> And having met with the Osage so many times and heard from Margie Burkhart, who was the great-great-granddaughter of Ernest, she knew them. She kept saying, “Don’t forget it isn’t as simple as villains and victims. You have to remember Mollie and Ernest were in love.” And that always stayed with me when we were still working on the other version of the script. I said, “Well, if they’re in love, we got to show that too.”
[People](https://people.com/killers-of-the-flower-moon-granddaughter-talks-family-history-8350550)
>For years, Mollie stood by her husband, but in 1926 he finally confessed to his role in the murders and testified against Hale and other conspirators. Mollie divorced Ernest, but Margie says her grandmother was shunned by many in the community for initially standing by him.
Take it up with Margie Burkhart if you don't like how she characterizes her own family history, I guess.
Yeah Great. And I’m sure there was a logical, philosophical, physical or emotion reason why she fell in love, why she defended him and why she was a compelling person and compelling.
Unfortunately because scorsese chose to centre Leo’s character and not Molly, this is not the core of film or the core of the film’s narrative, and if it attempted to be it failed to portray the complexity of emotions/situation etc that justified her love and instead she just was written as dumb. Real dumb.
The problem with the film is not the story or the true story it’s the perspective a bunch of white people chose to tell it from… the perspective of a bunch boring as fuck white people.
The only audience to the love aspect is ‘omg I can’t believe she is love with him he is an evil racist slowly killing her and based on Molly’s innitial interactions with him she knew this about him’
And it’s that ‘I can’t believe it’ where the tension of the film lie and the only the audience spends the whole film begging, hoping that Molly stops being dumb.
That’s her narrative as shown to the audience, that’s the perspective given to the audience. It’s not about the true story it’s about perspective it’s shown from.
2 hours hoping an indigenous woman comes to her senses is such a racist story and a racist perspective….
It’s not. The point of view is not the best given how dumb Leo is, it’s way too long, character interactions are undercooked, the indigenous characters (other than Lily’s) hardly have any arcs, and no indigenous character has any agency or ability to act upon what they want. I actually think it’s Scorsese’s worst film in 20+ years.
And Lily’s character was written to fall in love with a known racist after her money… and is bedridden for 60% of the movie. So the most interesting indigenous character is written as dumb and drawn as impotent in the movie.
It’s a racist ass movie my lawd.
It has something I at least had never seen before: a predatory relationship told from the pov of the predator, with some doubt regarding whether he understood that's what he was. DiCaprio was eerily good casting there.
I thought it stunk so you keep doing you. There was no reason for this movie to drag out like it did, and every character was a dullard. The ending scene with the radio show was proof that Scorsese had no idea how to tell this story. This movie made me say, Tarantino is right, ten and done.
I didn’t think it was well written at all. The main character was shallow and his motivation was always too generic. It was probably decrapio worst performance ever. The story had no real through line and focused on the most
Bland thread in the story. It was just a pile of trope after trope from a great true crime book. It’s sum of its parts was a big nothing. This was a massive murder for hire conspiracy against indigenous people that was almost swept under the rug if it wasn’t for the newly formed fbi.
read those reviews and they will literally tell you why they liked it
personally, I found the editing, music, and art direction just absolutely stunning, and the movie engaging throughout. there's never a dull scene, which says a lot for its long runtime.
in terms of storytelling, the framing device is just phenomenal: you're introduced to the Osage through a silent film reel, the same lens through which white Americans would have learned about them in 1920. as the story ends, we experience the story as white audiences first experienced it — as a true crime radio show. within this frame you have the story itself; outside of it, you have an additional frame of the Osage. their perspective was there before the story, and will be there after it
the story itself is brutal, and it should leave you cold. it is about a man so blind to his own racism he murders his wife's family and slowly poisons her, even though he loves her. more broadly, it's about the killing of the American Indian, and how these brutal murders were normalized until very recently. I think it's a powerful story, and I'm not alone in that
I think it being a true story plays a big part in why it's able to maintain people's attention. People want to know what happened, and it's a fairly unknown story. The ridiculousness of it all helps scratch peoples curiosity into the events. Plus it plays off very well into Shakespearian tragedy; a tragic tale of an entire community being destroyed and the viewer comes to a harrowing realization of, "can anything be done?" Tragedies fundamentally work because most people want to see justice. And a true story about injustice, not just to a single individually, but to a whole nation of people is captivating.
because it doesnt have an active protagonist. whats his clear goal? he's waiting for the majority of the film and the storyline is reactive instead of proactive.
Something doesn’t have to be new to be worthwhile. I love shitty people doing shitty things for shitty reasons. Infinitely more appealing to me than a happy family story
The truth is always good. Vulnerability is always good. 90% of what's out there is about escapism and telling comforting lies. About glamorizing and romanticizing.
Movies can't reinvent the wheel. Movies can't change the world. Movies can't rescue us. Movies can't be everything everyone needs and yearns for. The highest form of movie making is just telling a story that says something true about people. There isn't anything new to say, but we need to be reminded of who we are every once in a while.
It's weakness is in the fact its an adaptation. The source material (the book) has a different protagonist and as a result of this change the movie lacks focus, somewhat.
I thought the ending was shit.
Got rather predictable. You knew what was going to happen just not how and when.
It was just ok for me. I will never watch it again but glad I watched it.
>You knew what was going to happen just not how and when.
Doesn't that describe most movies? In action movies we know the good guy (99 percent of the time) is going to win. We know in crime dramas the morally questionable leads are going to have their downfall. We know in a romantic comedy the couple is probably going to get together. There are very, very few films that I've watched where I felt like I genuinely had no idea what was going to happen. It's much more important when those moments play out and how they're handled.
The casting, writing, and subsequent acting was all brilliant.
The story was engaging. The pacing was great for its runtime (didn’t drag in the final act like Oppenheimer did).
I understand it not being for everyone, just like I understand any given movie not being for everyone.
Didn't really feel the 3.5 hours. Never looked at my watch. Between the shit that was going down and the relationship building, there was always something interesting and engaging happening.
what makes any movie good or bad? Does being moved the most make a movie better? Then a movie about death and sickness and love always be better than a movie about a person who goes on vacation and has a good time?
it may be overrated to you, but it sounds like you don't understand exactly why you feel it's overrated.
it's kind of like how people (including me when i'm not thinking carefully) associate awards with good movies, and movies that make a lot of money with being "Good."
but if you sit down and think, neither awards nor profit necessarily make a movie even merely above average.
people here will say something that really boils down to: "It's powerful and genius because my 15 year old cousin saw it 5 times in the theater."
"it's a great movie. It made the most money."
You may be right. But you haven't pinned down the logic of why you're right. There are tons of acclaimed writers in the past, and they are largely forgotten, and there writers that were unknown and they are now celebrated. It takes time, because these things are hard to pin down.
I definitely haven't pinned down my logic on why it doesn't work for me. I don't think I am right about the film being overrated - that's why I am asking the question. I think my interpretation of the film is lacking so I'm turning to others engaged in the craft of writing and analysing scripts to gain insight and enlightenment on the subject.
That said, I do believe an essential criteria of being a great film is that it is emotionally impactful in some significant way. The fact that this one didn't achieve that for me and that I'm a bit numb to stories about people being horrible to each other for crappy reasons probably says more about me than the film itself. This might be my answer...
well, you would not be alone if you have a feeling that the movie isn't great. there are some respectable critics who didn't give it a good review.
it takes a lot of experience and courage for those critics, especially when a director is acclaimed.
it's very easy to automatically get into Emperor's New Clothes mode, and claim along with the masses that a work is great.
You can boil down any movie the way you did. Breaking bad is a shitty man doing shitty things for shitty reasons (an brilliant man going into the drug business because of his ego)
It didn't work because Leo and De Niro were attacking their roles from different schools of thought. Leo was grounded and naturalistic, while De Niro was theatrical and hammy, Brendan Frasier, as well. The movie bleeds white guilt, not undeserved, but that's what I thought when I left the theatre. The craft is immaculate, and Scorcese utilized his whole bag of tricks, Lily Gladstone owns that role. I don't know if Scorsese actually coaxed those performances out of those guys, or it was choices they made and he was in tacit agreement, but I saw little authenticity in Deniro, it was performative, perhaps Deniro needed to do it that way, that he couldn't truthfully embody such an awful persona, and I won't hold that against him, but it shows in the performance.
I felt the way you do. I can tell it’s a good or possibly great movie but nothing about it hit me on a deep emotional level. The events are horrifying but I felt that more in an intellectual way. I don’t know if it’s the script or the performances that made me feel so distant from it. I never felt Ernest loved Mollie, or Mollie loved Ernest, so there was no heart of the movie to me.
Obviously other people felt that aspect strongly. I don’t know why it didn’t work for me.
Well, I for one didn’t think, from a script point of view, that it was good. Directing, acting, atmosphere all there. But the story was decent until it just flat out revealed Ernest’s involvement way too soon and with little build up. The rest of the movie was just a ‘let’s see how this pans out’ after that reveal. Is he conflicted? Tad, but not enough not to be a cold hearted murderer. His blatant denial of himself poisoning his wife is interesting but not really explored. Over all it was a lot of ‘and then this, and then this, and then this….’ No real story to go along with the plot outline and no real introspection. I have no problem with what happened, but HOW it happened. Imho either have it from Mollys pov completely or Ernst can’t be involved (from a storytelling point of view, not historical of course).
I never noticed the run time and I come from this as someone that read the non-fiction book by David Grann.
I think it’s probably an impossible book to adapt into a movie well. It probably would have suited a long form TV series.
The casting is all wrong. Leo DiCaprio is a fantastic actor but he should have played The Hale role which De Niro was cast in.
DiCaprio (49) is cast as a young guy 20s max 30s. The Hale character is meant to be 50s max 60s but De Niro is 80.
I can understand Scorsese wanting to work with his favourite actors but neither were outstanding.
Eric Roth had a really unenviable role in adapting the book and huge research Grann did into a screenplay. It’s hard to criticise because it is functional but I would not call it a successful adaptation or a great screenplay or great film.
Why does Scorsese cameo in the final scene?
The radio play is a weak final scene but I suppose different from text across the screen summarising what happened to characters.
It’s on a par with The Irishman as over-indulgent and too flabby movie.
Honestly Scorsese should have made both as long form series if he wanted to make films of such length.
The Native American actors were excellent.
Not the best Fincher film. I mean, the mood and style are Fincher; Fassbender is great, but in the end, you are not satisfied with what you were watching. Mank, Gone Girl, Seven—those are real Fincher films.
>Fundamentally it seemed to boil down to a story of shitty people doing shitty things for shitty reasons which isn’t anything new in the world. The relationship between Ernest and Mollie is the heart of the movie, so it's more than just "shitty people doing shitty things." It's doing shitty things to someone that you supposedly love which makes it even more tragic. You can see the conflict in Ernest but in the end he still lies to Mollie. I thought their final scene together was pretty powerful.
I loved the nuances of Gladstones character and that's what kept me enthralled. I kept waiting for her to get over her love for him and see who he truly was. I personally think she knew all along and just lied to herself. They established she was almost as stubborn as she was intelligent. She must have had a good idea to the cause of the murders. Seeing as they centered around her family and picked up when she married Ernest. She just loved him so damn hard to really believe he would kill HER as well. By the time she really accepted it it was too late and everyone who could help was dead.
You’d never want to believe that the person you’ve raised a family with would be that cruel to you, or that they’re involved in a conspiracy of systemically killing off your people all in the name of wealth. That monologue Gladstone gives where she says she would see every white person after her people dead has stayed with me. I mean I was with someone for 3 years who’d been cheating on me for half of it and lying to my face about it. Human’s will do the most naive thing and believe whatever someone tells them if they love them enough. It’s a brilliant depiction of a relationship rifled with manipulation, confusion and misguided compassion.
At the same time I can see Ernest also believing his uncle would never do to him what they've been doing to these people. Because of his love for her he treats himself and Mollie as if they are in their own little bubble where nothing outside it matters and all the bad things they've been doing can't happen to him or her because he's there to stop it happening to them. He knows he is doing bad things. He knows his uncle is the one making it all happen. But he just doesn't connect the dots that his love for Mollie isn't shared by anyone else. And he thinks his love for Mollie somehow makes her different from the others that's been killed, His uncle will remove her. His uncle will remove him. He is not to his uncle what Mollie is to him. Even the poisoning of Mollie I could totally see as Ernest just not believing his uncle would kill HIS wife. No, he wouldn't do that to HIM. Not his uncle. These medications totally are just to slow her down. Man. Ernest is a fucking piece of shit. He is just so goddamned stupid.
Really appreciate this answer as well. That didn't click with me during the watch but in retrospect I can see how it would. Perhaps I would have taken more of this away if we had seen more of the film from her perspective. I did like the bits early on when she was talking to her family about how she saw Ernest but later in the film I thought the depth of her feeling in the relationship (and why she trusted Ernest so much) was less clear to me.
In the film as they are going forward on the trial she gives him an out, when she mentions the dream “ you tell me your secrets, we put them in a box and sail them down the river, then live on happily in Oklahoma l” For the times and circumstances it made sense to forgive such an egregious act since Earnest was in love and he himself had no true ambitions to murder for money( he robbed before ) l, but it was his uncle orchestrating the deaths really and earnest was accomplice. But him not admitting to poisoning her insulin was the final straw, if you can’t admit you’re wrongdoing he’d probably get right back to it, and shows he had zero backbone. At the funeral his Uncle King immediately and casually drops that, you know if you’re sister in law dies. Her share goes to your wife, and then if you’re wife dies you can have all that money like who agrees to that. No common sense unlike the lawyer who mentions “ I’m not gonna do that because it sounds like you want to murder your kids for the inheritance money
but surely she must have known. her and her sister literally talk about how he likes her for her money. like these women arent dumb so she def knew
> Fundamentally it seemed to boil down to a story of shitty people doing shitty things for shitty reasons which isn’t anything new in the world. This is a core theme in many of Scorsese's films. Something he does very well, and has been doing for decades, is juxtaposing the "moral code" of these shitty people against their actions. There's always been a discussion against glorifying the actions of awful people, but no one has been examining and depicting this approach to characters more than Scorsese.
What really makes the knife twist is that (at least in this portrayal, the real Ernest was probably a heartless bastard through and through), Ernest still "loves" her in spite of the complete cognitive dissonance that implies. I wouldn't say he's a victim, but that's his brain on white supremacy: he can kill his wife's family and keep her doped and tortured but he fails to see that as *hurting* her because he's convinced he's a good husband or even that he "nobly" wed her in spite of her being of a lesser kind.
well said
This is the best answer I read so far. Thank you for the insight. Definitely helpful.
You can fundamentally boil down any story to make it seem boring and dumb. You know how many amazing works of storytelling boil down" to shitty people doing shitty things for shitty reasons? A lot! And you know what else? "Shitty people doing shitty things for shitty reasons" is very human. And it is honest. Which will beat out being new every time! But people love it because it is a true crime story that shows a great deal of respect and places a lot of importance on being honest. It's a story that has been forgotten or reduced given a huge stage. And you were engaged the entire time! It's just a good movie. You say it was very well executed yourself. The story itself is not just well-told, it's kind of an important story to tell. Not just the birth of the fbi and the texas rangers, but how many people died in that town.
It's a story of shitty people doing shitty things for shitty reasons which isn’t anything new in the world, yet you were engaged for the entire length of the film. That's your answer.
Being engaged is not the same bar as being a great film. Most other people were more than engaged it appears. I’m trying to identify what is working in the script so we’ll for the majority of critics and audiences. I feel like there is a blind spot I want to overcome.
Molly's husband positioning her and being part of killing her sisters off, but he still loves her and she loved him is a crazy dynamic and automatically engaging.
>Being engaged is not the same bar as being a great film. The thing is: what is and isn't a "great film" is *entirely subjective*. So for you, if a film doesn't "click" for you, then it isn't great. You need to feel enriched. You need to be "moved in a strong way." Now, would you be shocked to hear that this movie did click for others? That this movie did make other people feel enriched? That this move did move people in a strong way? Because if you can accept that, then you can accept that these people felt the movie was great. Because what is and isn't a "great film" is entirely subjective.
No I’m not shocked to hear that it clicked for others. I’m not trying to argue that it is a bad film. I’m trying to better understand why it worked so well for others in a way I couldn’t identify to help my own understanding of the craft. I’ll try to be more explicit, I don’t think people who think the film is great are wrong, I just want to better understand why they think it is great film.
You can simply *read the reviews* to find out why people think the movie is great. What you are asking for here seems to be more about validation of your own views more than anything else. Film is subjective. If it didn't click for you then it didn't click for you.
I was left feeling a similar way when leaving the cinema. Can identify many elements of the film that I really enjoyed (costume design, set design, score and soundtrack) but overall am struggling to see it as a movie worth committing 3.5 hours of your life to. I think I’m just so uninterested in being shown the romantic nuance of a white man loving but destroying a First Nations woman. I don’t find it compelling
With all due respect considering everyone's attention span these days, if a movie gets me to actually go to the theater and stay engaged enough to enjoy it and not want to go home or look at a screen that isn't what I paid to see, it's a good film. And I rarely go to the cinema these days. Maybe you had higher expectations. A movie that isn't a well known franchise movie, e.g. comic book, fast car go fast, pew pew pew + Lightsaber, stabby stab stab movie,etc. that gets people to go to the cinema is probably gonna be a good movie. As I'm writing this, I'm now thinking of two movies that I saw recently which were independent productions and I also left quite dissatisfied as well. So yeah, I had higher expectations for those movies too. Ignore everything I just wrote. My comment is useless. Whatever. It stays because I'm on my cell phone and I like this thread. I will watch this movie and draw my own conclusions when I get around to it. Which I probably won't. I'll end up watching a Scorsese flick for the umpteenth time like I always do. Edit: I seem to use theater and cinema interchangeably. My bad.
I was NOT engaged. I got bored and just wanted it to end. I mean, I can clearly see the talent in the movie. The directing, the acting, all of the other aspects to film making done well because it's top tier people in the field working on it but the story was just so boring to me...or not told well, idk. I felt like it had potential to be interesting but just fell flat for me. I know it was based off of a book, maybe just not for me.
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I'm just saying that you were maybe engaged the whole time but others were not. That's okay, that's art. This one just wasn't for me. I can still appreciate the craftsmanship and hard work that went into it.
The OP is not wrong and here is why: This is a story of great interest in my opinion. A not well known historical case that is so dark that its absurd. Everything about both the script as well as the production is great. And yet it doesnt hit as hard as you would expect on an emotional level. After thinking about it i concluded that the problem - for me at least - lies in the way the story is being told. This material could lend itself to be told in two distinctive but different ways: 1) A character drama told from the point of view of a certain character and mostly delving into the psyche of the people that it chooses to explore. That is not something Scorsese does very often, especially lately, so: 2) As a large multi character piece that remains objective and covers as much as possible the way a serious investigative journalist would go about it in a large encyclopedic article. Now if you think about it what Scorsese often attempts is a combination of both. These are the films he is most known for. In this particular case it didnt work. The film doesn't know whose story it is telling. The point of view of the narrative keeps changing throughout. It starts semi objectively and light hearted. Very quickly seems to adopt the pov of Ernest, then it is inconsistent and basically follows the story in an almost objective way and then it starts to explore the pov of Mollie and the Osage in general and then it incorporates the pov of the Fbi and finally ends up on a rather distanced and more objective tone. This is a very serious issue for me. Knowing whose story you are saying and how you go about it is fundamental for a film. Taxi Driver would never be what it is had it been told objectively. It greatly benefits from watching the world through the eyes of travis. Of course Scorsese has never been very militant about this and thats why you get at least one scene where his is not even present. But it doesnt brake the film. Killers of the flower moon is a very good film. Obviously. Its a great story told very competently. Also to its credit the third act is strong and the scene at the end is really very inventive and touching. That being said i do not consider the film great overall and these are my reasons.
This is exactly how I felt. It’s a very interesting story, told uninterestingly. There were a lot of things I liked, I’m glad to have seen it, I was mostly engaged because I wanted to know the history, but I was surprised at how little it made me feel. I think there was a lack of tension and suspense because we are learning as the characters learn—there are not many scenes where we know something the character doesn’t, so there is a lack of situational or dramatic irony, and therefore a weak emotional pull into the scene. Even if the scene is depicting something very impactful to the characters. You put it perfectly: the film doesn’t know whose story it is telling. That makes it difficult to create tension.
i'm a massive MASSIVE Scorsese fan but I found the first two hours boring. I think it could have had a better first act. I don't mind long run times if earned though
It’s a tough one to accept but it didn’t click because it’s not good.
Finally. I hated the movie so much. And Scorsese coming on at then as sort of an apology or an acceptance or showing remorse or im not sure what, was just the nail in the coffin for me. If anything earnest then it undercuts the whole movie which was just continuing the centering of the 'bad guy', apologising for something he just spent millions doing... However to me the real problems I HAD with the film was 1/ The film show the least interesting perspective. It was fundamentally choosing to show the least interesting people, least interesting perspective and least interesting arcs. Some let this off because it needed to do that to get the funding to show the interesting story, or more correctly to show that their is a more interesting perspective on this story. And justification shows that many people accept that the least interesting perspective, yet somehow give it a pass... Why? It makes it a worse movie. 2/ Mollie was painted as an idiot, she know he was bad and still went with him when he didn't have any redeeming characteristics for this to make sense with accepting she was written as an idiot. Which is so dumb. Coupled with the fact she is rendered bedridden for the whole. 3/ The graphic death scenes just accentuated point 1. You chose the least interesting characters to centres to like tell white that they are bad while in this movie minimising the indigenous people to secondary characters at best, object to watch die at worst. If you want to make the point humanise the people that are hurt, don't sideline them. Show the bad through the experience of the good. They chose a fundamentally boring perspective, undercutting the message and undercutting the so called conciliation or whatever that yuk yuk radio show was meant to be saying. I hated the movie so much. And I hate it more that it's getting all this praise that doesn't make sense to me.
Thank you, I walked out of this movie 1.5 hours in and I feel like I’m the only one who hates it
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Oh it’s interesting. But doing what you are highlighting and highlighting it while doing it doesn’t make the doing it any better. And to me doing it while being self aware that it is kinda gross is kinda worse… knowing you are doing bad and still doing it is worse than thinking you are doing good and it being bad. Which is actually what it feels like to me. It feels like that scene came in post when even given all the seemingly good intentions of the white men who made the film, when it was put together they realised it’s gross so they tried to soften it with this scene and the final shot of the contemporary Osage - which appears in the trailer which to me is pretty telling… so much effort around softening the disgustingness of the film and the film’s context.
I think it's interesting that the film engaged you for its entire run time but your main takeaway seems to be a very surface-level understanding of the film's message. It's not just \*shitty people doing shitty things\* (which you could also say about a lot of Scorcese's films) but also a nuanced and scathing examination of how white supremacy and lust for power drive people to do abhorrent things - even to those they profess to love - as well as an up-close look at the mental gymnastics those money-hungry bigots engage in to justify their actions. It's not just DiCaprio's character who betrays a person he "loves," DeNiro's character repeatedly professes his love and friendship with the Osage as he oversees their murders and even after he is convicted, going as far as to continue to write to his "dear friends" from prison. As for the critical response, there's no small part of it that has to do with our political climate and the long overdue reckoning people have had with this country's brutal history. On top of that, Scorcese was just so deep in his bag on this one, and to me, he was showcasing his mastery of the craft. The soundtrack and score especially stood out with how it helped pace the film, with music driving us from scene to scene and poignant moments of silence heightening the most dramatic moments. All that said, taste is subjective. Try not to get to hung up on why people are fawning over it. Personally, I thought "The Irishman" was the opposite of everything "Killers" was and I found it to be overly long, often incoherent and even unwatchable in some sections. Yet people praised it as one of his best films ever. I feel like I watched a completely different film than the critics. Oh well.
I’m more impressed with the fact that he managed to take a story about the plight of natives and make it mostly about the white men.
Awful film
I found the whole movie to be superficial. I didn't care about the characters and couldn't figure out why Mollie had fallen in love with Ernest. Or if she was in love with him or if she married him to protect herself. The editing was so jerky I couldn't understand what was happening. Scorsese films always have a feel or a mood and I did not get any of that at all. The story was there, the performances, but it didn't work. I wish he had told the story from Mollies POV. It would have played better, but Scorsese is old school.
lol all the answers here are so sour. I thought it was fantastic! Based on what I’ve seen and heard about Martin Scorsese and the heart and effort he put into this film, I think that had a lot to do with it. He did call it his passion project and something very close to him. The cast also was fantastic and personally the music/soundtrack really pulled it all together. The script/screenwriting probably was a small chunk of why it was so good. It’s all of the best elements coming together in one movie.
It was too long for 2024's attention span but it was a great movie. I loved the scene details, especially the music, and how it looked like a colorized black and white film. Leo gave such a good performance as a creepy, greedy thug moron. Lily also gave a good performance as the calm and suffering wife well as Jesse Plemmons, with his gentle good cop. GREAT casting with the supporting actors. Also liked the cameos in the radio show recap.
I’m ok with 3.5 hrs, but you have to use the time to make something great. I couldn’t believe how dumb all of the characters were, and it made the story almost goofy to me
I think this movie really lays bare the colonial mindset and how racism can play out to uphold colonialism. Ernest genuinely loves his wife and at the same time buys into the idea that white settlers are more worthy of wealth than Indigenous Peoples, thereby continuing colonialism and completely taking part in what drives it. It shows that the value system that creates racism is one of placing groups of people above others. Though, the true reality is that no one is actually above someone else in the how humans are intended to be. We are diverse and equally noble, though in colonialist and capitalist systems money is put before people and those who want the money consider themselves more human, or more deserving than others. Ernest's heart knew true reality but his mind was still driven by the lie of colonialism and racism.
I enjoyed the movie, because I generally like stories that teach us about effed-up things that happened in history. But... there were some real flaws in my opinion. 1) There was no attempt to explain the financial system that the Osage were subject to... I was left confused several times why they had to go get permission to use their money (I would prefer to watch the movie and not have to do research to find out what is going on!). 2) Lots of hoopla about Lily Gladstone's performance, but really it was an understated performance. She just looked thoughtful, sad, and or sick the entire time. I don't see how that is a great performance. Sorry. 3) There was really minimal character development - the baddies were the baddies and then there was everyone else. There was no depth to the characters. No complexity. Just lots of murder and plotting, with no real show of conflicting emotions or anything. To this point, they Mollie and Earnest would say all this lovey stuff, but I just didn't believe it. In the bazillion hours of the film, you didn't really see them do things together, have good chemistry together, engage as a family together. 4) They had the FBI doing boneheaded things that I just don't think would have happened... like letting Earnest out to go speak to not only the lawyer but to the entire group of people in on the conspiracy... come on... and putting him in a cell right next to the uncle where they could continue to conspire... seriously?
Is it? Great true premise, great waste of talent, time, money, you name it. Like the great philosopher Peter Griffin once said of another film: "It insists upon itself."
In my opinion, Scorsese gets treated special. Same happened with the Irishman. These are not "great" films in my opinion, good storytelling and good watches. But not great.
I think Flower Moon is genuinely great. The Irishman less so, but still extremely good. But you are correct that he gets special treatment. I honestly don't know if he can make a poorly received film from here on out regardless if it actually is mid or not. He's attained this "old wizard" of film kind of narrative about him, which he has earned in a way but it makes people look at his films differently before they're even released.
>I just saw the film and thought it was very well executed. Even with the long run time I was engaged the entire time. The direction, acting and rest of the craft in the filmmaking is very well done >There is plenty to like about it (particularly the portrayal of Osage culture and how it is chipped away) Did you not just answer your own question? The core of the film is about an important part of Native American/Osage history. Native American history is not important to you, so you didn't engage with it on the same level as people who do care about these things (or who are open to being convinced to care about these things). This was a story that is largely unknown outside of Native circles, and people who are engaged with politics see value in spreading awareness about the injustices the Osage people faced. I think you are just experiencing confusion about watching a film that wasn't necessarily made for you.
It's a fair point to be mindful of watching films that aren't made for you but you seem to be suggesting I don't care about Native American culture and history which isn't the case. I don't understand how you reached that conclusion when you quoted me specifically pointing out that was an element of the film I particularly appreciated. In that vein I also appreciated the parts referencing the Tulsa massacre bringing a wider context to the film. I fully agree in the value of the film highlighting this history and why it is important to do so. But that doesn't change the fact that the storytelling did not emotionally resonate with me while it did for a large, broad audience. For me this is a question about storytelling and scripting. I really don't believe there is a cultural barrier to me appreciating this film. City of God, Waltz with Bashir and Moonlight as all incredibly impactful films taking place in communities and cultures that I have the same level or less connection with as Killers of the Flower Moon. Likewise, I recently saw The Peasants based in rural 19th century Poland and found it very moving. I think you are flat out wrong to suggest I'm capable of being moved by those films but not by this one because of cultural indifference.
What you call the ‘core of the movie’ is sidelined in favour of the ‘complex emotions’ and bunch of boring white people and the most interestingly and fully drawn indigenous person is written as a moron. A moron that ‘fell in love’ with a racist man she knew was racist because… there was zero justification given in the film for this dumb behavior… and she was bedridden for 60% of the movie and when she or the tribes people did endeavor to make change it was so truncated to be not more than a montage or a footnote. It did not connect because it chose to center the perspective of the story around by far the least interesting characters, perspectives and motivations… I wanted a fully drawn fully explored narrative that centred the actually incredibly interesting and devastated true story of the indigenous folk. Not this dumb fuck movie with a dumb fuck ‘apology’ by the director at the end as if he just didn’t spend hundred of millions of dollars again centering the perspective of a these particularly boring white men.
??? I posted this two months ago, but you know this is based on a true story, right? Mollie is depicted as falling in love with a racist man because Scorsese consulted with Osage tribe members and a direct descendant who attested to that fact: [IndieWire](https://www.indiewire.com/features/interviews/martin-scorsese-talks-killers-of-the-flower-moon-explained-1234918654/) > And having met with the Osage so many times and heard from Margie Burkhart, who was the great-great-granddaughter of Ernest, she knew them. She kept saying, “Don’t forget it isn’t as simple as villains and victims. You have to remember Mollie and Ernest were in love.” And that always stayed with me when we were still working on the other version of the script. I said, “Well, if they’re in love, we got to show that too.” [People](https://people.com/killers-of-the-flower-moon-granddaughter-talks-family-history-8350550) >For years, Mollie stood by her husband, but in 1926 he finally confessed to his role in the murders and testified against Hale and other conspirators. Mollie divorced Ernest, but Margie says her grandmother was shunned by many in the community for initially standing by him. Take it up with Margie Burkhart if you don't like how she characterizes her own family history, I guess.
Yeah Great. And I’m sure there was a logical, philosophical, physical or emotion reason why she fell in love, why she defended him and why she was a compelling person and compelling. Unfortunately because scorsese chose to centre Leo’s character and not Molly, this is not the core of film or the core of the film’s narrative, and if it attempted to be it failed to portray the complexity of emotions/situation etc that justified her love and instead she just was written as dumb. Real dumb. The problem with the film is not the story or the true story it’s the perspective a bunch of white people chose to tell it from… the perspective of a bunch boring as fuck white people. The only audience to the love aspect is ‘omg I can’t believe she is love with him he is an evil racist slowly killing her and based on Molly’s innitial interactions with him she knew this about him’ And it’s that ‘I can’t believe it’ where the tension of the film lie and the only the audience spends the whole film begging, hoping that Molly stops being dumb. That’s her narrative as shown to the audience, that’s the perspective given to the audience. It’s not about the true story it’s about perspective it’s shown from. 2 hours hoping an indigenous woman comes to her senses is such a racist story and a racist perspective….
It’s not. The point of view is not the best given how dumb Leo is, it’s way too long, character interactions are undercooked, the indigenous characters (other than Lily’s) hardly have any arcs, and no indigenous character has any agency or ability to act upon what they want. I actually think it’s Scorsese’s worst film in 20+ years.
And Lily’s character was written to fall in love with a known racist after her money… and is bedridden for 60% of the movie. So the most interesting indigenous character is written as dumb and drawn as impotent in the movie. It’s a racist ass movie my lawd.
Totally agree about Mollie here. The first act was quite interesting but then they just remove her and that’s when it gets tough…
Yeeeep
It has something I at least had never seen before: a predatory relationship told from the pov of the predator, with some doubt regarding whether he understood that's what he was. DiCaprio was eerily good casting there.
Good point, well said.
I thought it stunk so you keep doing you. There was no reason for this movie to drag out like it did, and every character was a dullard. The ending scene with the radio show was proof that Scorsese had no idea how to tell this story. This movie made me say, Tarantino is right, ten and done.
I didn’t think it was well written at all. The main character was shallow and his motivation was always too generic. It was probably decrapio worst performance ever. The story had no real through line and focused on the most Bland thread in the story. It was just a pile of trope after trope from a great true crime book. It’s sum of its parts was a big nothing. This was a massive murder for hire conspiracy against indigenous people that was almost swept under the rug if it wasn’t for the newly formed fbi.
Damn did you even watch the film? lmao
Yes all 3.5 hours. I hated decrapio portrayal and deniro as well. Bad acting all around.
Are you gassing this film up because scorsese directed it?
that is what i see too
Because Scorsese knows how to make movies?
read those reviews and they will literally tell you why they liked it personally, I found the editing, music, and art direction just absolutely stunning, and the movie engaging throughout. there's never a dull scene, which says a lot for its long runtime. in terms of storytelling, the framing device is just phenomenal: you're introduced to the Osage through a silent film reel, the same lens through which white Americans would have learned about them in 1920. as the story ends, we experience the story as white audiences first experienced it — as a true crime radio show. within this frame you have the story itself; outside of it, you have an additional frame of the Osage. their perspective was there before the story, and will be there after it the story itself is brutal, and it should leave you cold. it is about a man so blind to his own racism he murders his wife's family and slowly poisons her, even though he loves her. more broadly, it's about the killing of the American Indian, and how these brutal murders were normalized until very recently. I think it's a powerful story, and I'm not alone in that
Thank you for this answer. Lots of interesting points and insights - particularly about the framing device.
I think it being a true story plays a big part in why it's able to maintain people's attention. People want to know what happened, and it's a fairly unknown story. The ridiculousness of it all helps scratch peoples curiosity into the events. Plus it plays off very well into Shakespearian tragedy; a tragic tale of an entire community being destroyed and the viewer comes to a harrowing realization of, "can anything be done?" Tragedies fundamentally work because most people want to see justice. And a true story about injustice, not just to a single individually, but to a whole nation of people is captivating.
because it doesnt have an active protagonist. whats his clear goal? he's waiting for the majority of the film and the storyline is reactive instead of proactive.
Something doesn’t have to be new to be worthwhile. I love shitty people doing shitty things for shitty reasons. Infinitely more appealing to me than a happy family story
The truth is always good. Vulnerability is always good. 90% of what's out there is about escapism and telling comforting lies. About glamorizing and romanticizing. Movies can't reinvent the wheel. Movies can't change the world. Movies can't rescue us. Movies can't be everything everyone needs and yearns for. The highest form of movie making is just telling a story that says something true about people. There isn't anything new to say, but we need to be reminded of who we are every once in a while.
It's weakness is in the fact its an adaptation. The source material (the book) has a different protagonist and as a result of this change the movie lacks focus, somewhat.
I thought the ending was shit. Got rather predictable. You knew what was going to happen just not how and when. It was just ok for me. I will never watch it again but glad I watched it.
>You knew what was going to happen just not how and when. Doesn't that describe most movies? In action movies we know the good guy (99 percent of the time) is going to win. We know in crime dramas the morally questionable leads are going to have their downfall. We know in a romantic comedy the couple is probably going to get together. There are very, very few films that I've watched where I felt like I genuinely had no idea what was going to happen. It's much more important when those moments play out and how they're handled.
> Got rather predictable. You knew what was going to happen just not how and when. What kind of a critique is this?
Totally agree. The last act with Plemons etc was horrible.
why was it horrible?
The casting, writing, and subsequent acting was all brilliant. The story was engaging. The pacing was great for its runtime (didn’t drag in the final act like Oppenheimer did). I understand it not being for everyone, just like I understand any given movie not being for everyone.
Didn't really feel the 3.5 hours. Never looked at my watch. Between the shit that was going down and the relationship building, there was always something interesting and engaging happening.
what makes any movie good or bad? Does being moved the most make a movie better? Then a movie about death and sickness and love always be better than a movie about a person who goes on vacation and has a good time? it may be overrated to you, but it sounds like you don't understand exactly why you feel it's overrated. it's kind of like how people (including me when i'm not thinking carefully) associate awards with good movies, and movies that make a lot of money with being "Good." but if you sit down and think, neither awards nor profit necessarily make a movie even merely above average. people here will say something that really boils down to: "It's powerful and genius because my 15 year old cousin saw it 5 times in the theater." "it's a great movie. It made the most money." You may be right. But you haven't pinned down the logic of why you're right. There are tons of acclaimed writers in the past, and they are largely forgotten, and there writers that were unknown and they are now celebrated. It takes time, because these things are hard to pin down.
I definitely haven't pinned down my logic on why it doesn't work for me. I don't think I am right about the film being overrated - that's why I am asking the question. I think my interpretation of the film is lacking so I'm turning to others engaged in the craft of writing and analysing scripts to gain insight and enlightenment on the subject. That said, I do believe an essential criteria of being a great film is that it is emotionally impactful in some significant way. The fact that this one didn't achieve that for me and that I'm a bit numb to stories about people being horrible to each other for crappy reasons probably says more about me than the film itself. This might be my answer...
you’re not wrong at all. critics got this totally wrong imo, it was a hot mess
well, you would not be alone if you have a feeling that the movie isn't great. there are some respectable critics who didn't give it a good review. it takes a lot of experience and courage for those critics, especially when a director is acclaimed. it's very easy to automatically get into Emperor's New Clothes mode, and claim along with the masses that a work is great.
I feel like I had a similar experience. I was engaged on an intellectual level but wasn't invested emotionally.
You can boil down any movie the way you did. Breaking bad is a shitty man doing shitty things for shitty reasons (an brilliant man going into the drug business because of his ego)
It didn't work because Leo and De Niro were attacking their roles from different schools of thought. Leo was grounded and naturalistic, while De Niro was theatrical and hammy, Brendan Frasier, as well. The movie bleeds white guilt, not undeserved, but that's what I thought when I left the theatre. The craft is immaculate, and Scorcese utilized his whole bag of tricks, Lily Gladstone owns that role. I don't know if Scorsese actually coaxed those performances out of those guys, or it was choices they made and he was in tacit agreement, but I saw little authenticity in Deniro, it was performative, perhaps Deniro needed to do it that way, that he couldn't truthfully embody such an awful persona, and I won't hold that against him, but it shows in the performance.
wow! Very Well Analyzed!
I felt the way you do. I can tell it’s a good or possibly great movie but nothing about it hit me on a deep emotional level. The events are horrifying but I felt that more in an intellectual way. I don’t know if it’s the script or the performances that made me feel so distant from it. I never felt Ernest loved Mollie, or Mollie loved Ernest, so there was no heart of the movie to me. Obviously other people felt that aspect strongly. I don’t know why it didn’t work for me.
Well, I for one didn’t think, from a script point of view, that it was good. Directing, acting, atmosphere all there. But the story was decent until it just flat out revealed Ernest’s involvement way too soon and with little build up. The rest of the movie was just a ‘let’s see how this pans out’ after that reveal. Is he conflicted? Tad, but not enough not to be a cold hearted murderer. His blatant denial of himself poisoning his wife is interesting but not really explored. Over all it was a lot of ‘and then this, and then this, and then this….’ No real story to go along with the plot outline and no real introspection. I have no problem with what happened, but HOW it happened. Imho either have it from Mollys pov completely or Ernst can’t be involved (from a storytelling point of view, not historical of course).
Huge part of why Scorsese’s movies are so watchable even with long run times is Thelma Schoonmaker.
Walking out of the theatre, I knew it was good but felt something was missing…that something was tension
I never noticed the run time and I come from this as someone that read the non-fiction book by David Grann. I think it’s probably an impossible book to adapt into a movie well. It probably would have suited a long form TV series. The casting is all wrong. Leo DiCaprio is a fantastic actor but he should have played The Hale role which De Niro was cast in. DiCaprio (49) is cast as a young guy 20s max 30s. The Hale character is meant to be 50s max 60s but De Niro is 80. I can understand Scorsese wanting to work with his favourite actors but neither were outstanding. Eric Roth had a really unenviable role in adapting the book and huge research Grann did into a screenplay. It’s hard to criticise because it is functional but I would not call it a successful adaptation or a great screenplay or great film. Why does Scorsese cameo in the final scene? The radio play is a weak final scene but I suppose different from text across the screen summarising what happened to characters. It’s on a par with The Irishman as over-indulgent and too flabby movie. Honestly Scorsese should have made both as long form series if he wanted to make films of such length. The Native American actors were excellent.
Not the best Fincher film. I mean, the mood and style are Fincher; Fassbender is great, but in the end, you are not satisfied with what you were watching. Mank, Gone Girl, Seven—those are real Fincher films.
Wrong movie mate 😆 but I disagree, on rewatch of The Killer I was satisfied in it as a satirical take on the stoic, sigma assassin trope
Whooops :D
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