Killers of the Flower Moon
“Killers of the Flower Moon stakes its curiosity in the sins of white men rather than in the rich lives and contributions of Native peoples.”
Title: Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
Director: Martin Scorsese 👨🏼🇺🇸
Writers: Eric Roth 👨🏼🇺🇸 and Martin Scorsese 👨🏼🇺🇸 based on the book by David Grann 👨🏼🇺🇸
Reviewed by Li 👩🏻🇺🇸
—MILD SPOILERS AHEAD—
Technical: 4.25/5
Martin Scorsese’s Western elegy, Killers of the Flower Moon, drops viewers into 1920s Osage Nation where death hangs like an oppressive weight. Native people like Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone) find themselves with targets on their backs as greedy white settlers in sheep’s clothing swarm Fairfax, Oklahoma, hell-bent on scrabbling some of the area’s newfound oil wealth for themselves.
Over the course of three-and-a-half hours, editor Thelma Schoonmaker deliberately paces an intricate story of subterfuge and immorality, using moments of visceral violence and dark humor to punch up the cadence. As a result, the film’s long runtime manages to avoid the torpor that can set in after a lesser movie’s two-hour mark. Even through dry courtroom scenes, Scorsese’s foreboding narrative encroaches, made all the more chilling given its basis on true events. Minor directorial decisions aside, such as Brendan Fraser and Scorsese’s cameos which distract from the narrative, this dark piece of American history snags a place in your chest and sticks after the credits roll.
Gender: 3.5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES
Gladstone puts in an incredible performance full of restraint and subtly telegraphed wells of emotion. But she’s given short shrift by the narrative. It’s a shame, because the film begins with a beautiful celebration of female strength: Mollie and her sisters Minnie (Jillian Dion), Reta (JaNae Collins), and Anna (Cara Jade Myers), plus matriarch Lizzie Q (Tantoo Cardinal), each have respective personalities, strengths, and flaws. The love between them is palpable, invigorating the film with their ease and sass. But one by one, Mollie’s family members are cut down by the unstoppable force of white men who view them as disposable pawns in a game of chess.
It isn’t their demise that feels like a disservice, though it certainly doesn’t help. What’s frustrating is something the writers had more control over—the level of agency these women could’ve had within the lives they led. Early in the film, prime villain and master puppeteer William Hale (Robert De Niro) tells his nephew, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), that Osage people don’t say much, but they’re smart. Yet this means nothing when on screen, Osage characters—most of them women—get duped by the murderers they invite into their homes, seemingly none the wiser.
At its best, Mollie gathers her strength while weakened by diabetes to make a trip to Washington, D.C., where she pleads with Congress to do something about the massacre of her people in Fairfax. But even then, she relies on male politicians to deploy help in the form of investigators, led by Tom White (Jesse Plemons). It’s these men who eventually save Mollie from William’s evil ploy. All the while, viewers suffer through hours of Mollie’s victimization. She’s a heart-wrenching character to watch, but some of that frustration comes from the mismatch in what we’re told—that the women in Killers of the Flower Moon are intelligent and independent—and what we actually see, which is obliviousness, naiveté, and zero control over their own lives.
Race: 4/5
Although the film is written and directed by white men like Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth (Dune, A Star is Born), the production team adequately listened to, and included, Osage voices into the filmmaking process. As a result, aspects such as language, wardrobe, and casting within the film vibrate with authenticity. Gladstone (of Blackfeet Nation) plays the film’s most visible Native character, but plenty of others fill the roster in supporting roles. Cardinal (Cree and Métis) plays Lizzie Q with gravitas, while the heroic cool of federal agent John Wren (Tatanka Means who has Diné, Oglala Lakota, and other Native American ancestry) made me long for a standalone movie following his swashbuckling adventures.
There are no white saviors in this film, and that’s to its immense advantage as it creates a story that feels more palpable, more truthful, than so many Hollywood takes on the American Western. Main white characters range from evil incarnate, like William, to the murkier waters of Ernest’s complicity. Even the “good guy” federal agents who eventually come to investigate the murders of Osage people, most of them white, are subtly, but meaningfully, revealed to have been paid $20,000 from tribe members to grease the wheels.
At the end of the day, Killers of the Flower Moon focuses on the “killers” in its title: white men and their power struggles, making it clear this movie didn’t come from Native filmmakers and wasn’t made for Native audiences. Osage language consultant Christopher Cote points out, “I think [Scorsese] did a great job representing our people, but this history is being told almost from the perspective of Ernest Burkhart.” That, emphasized by the decision to relegate Mollie to a smaller role than that of Ernest, shows that Killers of the Flower Moon stakes its curiosity in the sins of white men rather than in the rich lives and contributions of Native peoples.
Bonus for Body Diversity: +0.50
Mollie and her sisters fall outside Hollywood’s narrow conventions of what leading women look like. These women of color have broad shoulders, butts, and boobs; they’re gorgeous and—crucially—they’re portrayed that way, given beautiful clothes to wear and different forms of confidence, from Mollie’s quiet inner glow to Anna’s swagger and vivacity.
Mediaversity Grade: B 4.08/5
Scorsese’s movies, including his last feature The Irishman (2019), almost always follow white male leads. Killers of the Flower Moon is no different, but the director does replicate the winning framework of 2016’s Silence by placing the men into sensitively drawn worlds inhabited by non-white citizens. Whether it’s Silence’s Japan or now Osage Nation, Scorsese shows his ability to empathize with people from other cultures, depicting Japanese and Osage characters with respect and complexity. This dexterity with writing outside his own experience falters when it comes to writing women, though. (The Irishman’s deep underuse of Anna Paquin comes to mind.) But Killers of the Flower Moon is lucky to have Gladstone on its roster. With her powerful presence, she elevates the film’s emotionality. It’s just too bad we don’t get to see or hear from her more.
Like Killers of the Flower Moon? Try these other Westerns featuring Indigenous leads.
Bones of Crows (2022)
The Rider (2018)
The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson (2021)