Liz Sutherland

Costner is obviously going for a Larry McMurtry-esque telling of how the American West was *really* won, with no varnish, and while you can see the attempt to show many POVs evenhandedly —the usual white settlers, the cavalry, Apache warriors and their families (speaking Athabaskan, which was very cool to hear), Chinese laborers, women surviving on their own in the oldest profession — the Hollywood gloss hasn’t been completely removed. The set and costume design is immaculate. The locations are gorgeous and beautifully filmed. Some of the acting/casting is very good and naturalistic (hoping to see more of Jena Malone in chapter two, she was the best acted and most interesting character and was barely in chapter one), while some not so much (not to single anyone out, but some actors just have too modern of a face and demeanor so when they’re in period pieces all I can think of is how often they go to Pilates and get an oatmilk matcha for afters, before brunching with their besties). But most importantly and unfortunately the writing & editing really have some painful misses. The many different storylines are all over the place so I never felt fully invested in any of them and some of them are just incoherently written. The young, naive English couple had potential to be interesting but were underdeveloped. I imagine we’ll see a bit more of their fate in chapter 2 but I can guess where they’re going with their story and am preemptively annoyed. I haven’t watched Chapter 2 yet and I plan to, just to see the resolution and see if it improves... But I’m still trying to get past the absolutely nonsensical and wayyy too long no-dialogue musical montage at the end that seems meant to cover years of events in the characters’ lives. But several moments flip past far too quickly to make out what is meant to have happened—too long while also being too rushed and poorly edited. I got more and more frustrated watching it, realizing what they were doing—slapdashedly condensing what should have been another 30 minutes of screen time into about 5 minutes of what comes across as an automated iMovie compilation of all of your photos and videos that pops up in your notifications at the end of the year. Did they run out of time? Budget? Unavailable actors? Screenwriter have a falling out with Costner? Who knows, but it sure doesn’t come across as intentional.