Casper Voogt

Thought-provoking dark comedy styled as a western. I got echoes of Falling Down. Someone else mentioned Fargo, which makes some sense to me too. There were a half dozen or so truly funny moments, to me anyway. I expect this film will anger some people on both sides of the political spectrum. I'm not sure if it has a political message. I felt it was holding up a mirror / showing a 2029 time capsule, and it's uncomfortable to watch because those times were .. uncomfortable. And that all that was just the setting / context for the protagonist's mental increasingly erratic state. I was surprised to find out the day after watching it that it's 2.5 hours. It felt like 1.5 to me. It kept me engaged. SPOILER ALERT: The protagonist's full frontal nudity scene has been described as unnecessary by some. I could see why the director may have wanted it in the film, though. Towards the end the sheriff is incapacitated and humiliated and is nude while people are moving his body, helping him. The visual of him being nude helps emphasize those things. I don't think it's necessarily gratuitous. Plus for a film that cast an unflinching eye on 2020 culture and politics, why would it shy away in / from that nude scene. It would be inconsistent. I saw Midsommar and didn't like it at all. Thought Aster was trying to look too clever, while relying on visual scare tactics to move things along. It didn't work on me, and didn't keep me engaged the way this film did, from start to finish. I saw Beau is Afraid and thought it had moments of brilliance, and overall was quite good, if plodding at times. This latest film was a success in my book. I'll take an original (if challenging) film over superhero slop any day.