Helga without the H

Every year* I attempt (with varying degrees of success and effort) to watch as many of that year’s Oscar nominees as possible. For the past few years* I’ve posted reviews of these movies here on this blog. At some point before the awards ceremony, I usually write up some sort of over-analysis and maybe some predictions, but we’ll see if I run out of steam before then. In the meantime, today we cover…

*Except 2022, when I was too burned out from 2021’s binge to give a crap.

Killers of the Flower Moon

[10 nominations for best picture, actress (Lily Gladstone), supporting actor (Robert DeNiro), director, cinematography, editing, production design, costumes, score, and song]

IS IT SALTBURN? No. I really really really wish it was. But it is not.

This movie was the biggest cinematic disappointment of the year for me. I say this as someone who really, REALLY wanted to love this movie. I was so excited for it. When I saw the commercials, I thought “OMG that looks AMAZING.” It grabbed my attention enough that I decided to read the entire book first. As I was reading the book (er, listening to the audiobook,) I thought “Wow, this is an incredible story. But the book is a little too dry. This will be so much better in movie form! They can do some really amazing stuff with this!” Then I spent full-rental prices to rent the movie as soon as it was available online instead of waiting a few weeks for it to be free. I think I even did this way before the Golden Globe nominees came out, because I wasn’t watching this film for Oscar-binging purposes; I was watching it because I really wanted to. Because there is an incredible, important, gut-wrenching story to tell here, and the storytellers involved are all top-notch players who can bring some real attention to this hidden tragedy.

But instead, we got this garbage. Ugh. I’m so disappointed.

First of all, the movie is boring. Like so, so very boring. Part of that is because, just like The Irishman (another recent Scorsese DeNiro project), this thing is just waaaaay too long. That’s a recurring theme this year, of course. But unlike Oppenheimer, which has tons of redeeming qualities and would be a great movie if only they chopped off an hour or so, Killers of the Flower Moon is completely flawed beyond just it’s length.

Here are some spoilers: The book is divided into three parts. Part one introduces a mystery; several members of the Osage tribe are mysteriously murdered. Several are connected to an Osage woman named Mollie Burkhart. In this section we learn about the history of the Osage, how they were exceedingly wealthy due to oil on their land, and how despite these resources they struggled to find answers regarding the string of deaths. Part two is about the FBI investigators and prosecutors who investigated, solved, and prosecuted the murders (including, spoiler alert, Mollie Burkhart’s own husband and his uncle). Part three reveals that, while researching the story of Part 1 and Part 2, the book’s author discovered that the elaborate conspiracy of white people killing off the Osage for their money was MUCH more widespread than just this one string of murders. We’re talking about potentially hundreds of murders, with elaborate cover-ups implicating pretty much every white person in the vicinity. All three of these sections are legitimately interesting and important, but the third is the one that I was most looking forward to having depicted on screen. The book was, frankly, a bit dry considering the fascinating tale it contained. The scale of this genocidal atrocity can be lost in the pages of text. But a film, not just a film, but a big glossy movie, could really drive home the point. It can really bring some attention to a tale that has been swept under the rug of American history.

I’d read before seeing the film that Martin Scorsese originally cast Leonardo DiCaprio as the FBI agent who comes in to solve the case. But after consulting extensively with the Osage, he reworked the entire script to center the Osage story instead of the white-knight story. Great! Good idea, Martin! I approve! The problem, though, was that now Hollywood Superstar Leo had a small role. So he got recast as Molly Burkhart’s murderous husband. And then we watched an entire movie where, from almost the first scene, we recentered the entire plot around Leo’s character. Oh, also, Robert DeNiro is in it, so we actually centered the movie around the two of them. In the book, we don’t find out they are the killers until the second part of the book. They are side characters, and Mollie and the rest of the Osage are the stars in a mystery story. But in this movie, they give us the ending right at the start. Why??? I cannot understand this logic.

I also couldn’t understand the plot of this movie. I even knew the story going in, but watching it live I was still constantly thinking “WTF is even happening now? Who is this guy? Why are we here?” And why was it so dull? The actual historical facts were not dull! How can you take such an intricate interesting story and just suck all the life out of it? Why are you filling it with random white musicians in cameos? I just don’t understand. I don’t understand any of it.

At the end we’re suddenly watching an old-timey stage/radio production where Martin Scorsese himself walks up to the mic and, in under a minute, spews the entire last third of the book at us. And I don’t remember frankly (because it was a while ago, and I’d already checked out from boredom, and was already too frustrated to concentrate), but I don’t think he even tells us the extend of the genocide. I think he just tells us who did/didn’t go to jail. That’s it. The section of the book that most deserved a big giant sweeping emotion-laden epic telling, and it’s an epilogue. No, less than an epilogue. An afterthought. And that’s disappointing.

On the plus side, there’s some great cinematography in here. I am glad the film was made (even if it sucked), and I’m glad it was made by very very famous people (even though they sucked at making it), because it drew widespread attention to this story. I, personally, am grateful for it drawing my own attention. And I am very glad that the Osage themselves were so heavily involved (though, on the other hand, they’re not the pro filmmakers, now are they? Maybe they weren’t the best to decide how to frame and present this story). And in theory it’s great to see the first Native American woman nominated for best actress. BUT… NONE of those acting nominations are deserved. At all. The fact that Lily actually WON the Golden Globe is mind-boggling to me. She barely had to do anything. Like… she was fine, but… again, she barely had to do anything! I don’t know how anyone could watch this movie, then watch, say, Nyad or Poor Things, and then surmise “Yeah, the lady who just kinda sat around doing nothing definitely deserves it.” But that’s nothing compared to the INSANITY of nominating Robert DeNiro for this role. WHAT???? Look, I like DeNiro. He’s great. He’s a good actor, and he’s done some crazy good movies with OScar-worthy roles. But here he’s just shoehorned into a role he has no business portraying. He’s several decades older than his character, for one. He’s supposed to be this gritty Western rancher type, but he’s just his usual New-Yorky self in a cowboy hat. The depiction is unrealistic, unrealized, and incorrectly cast. It detracts from what little there is of a story, and overshadows the Osage characters who are supposed to be at the heart of this thing. Ugh.