Katy Chance

A classic Jane Campion movie with (overly) long and meaningful stares and a generally dim and gloomy atmosphere. Netflix says of the movie, in part, "long hidden secrets come to life." They are not that well hidden and nothing comes to life. The phrase "toxic masculinity" will be used in many reviews, even though that really can't be applied retrospectively; in 1925 it would simply have been about cowboying up, cupcake. Benedict Cumberbatch is brilliant, but the sudden change of hating the obviously gay Peter to his congenial and understanding mentor is too quickly done -- the only quick thing in the movie. Reviews talk about "digging deep" into the inner turmoil of the characters; I'm afraid I missed all that. Not only is there hardly any present story/inner turmoil for any of the characters, there is even less back story. I learned nothing about Rose's inner turmoil at all. George is so vapid as to be almost void of any character whatsoever, let alone "inner secrets". And I have to admit that for most of the movie I felt the "hidden secret" may be that Phil was Peter's father -- genetically, it makes sense in terms of their looks. The final twist did make up quite a bit for sitting through the entire film; I laughed out loud when I realised what Peter had done, but damn it was a long time coming.