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This article was originally published on November 21, 2023.
Be sure to also check outour profile of Lily Gladstone.
Not the desolate frown Leonardo DiCaprio never wipes off his face.
Not the graying force of Robert De Niro.
But this very terrain is what Scorsese is ill-equipped to traverse.
Hale encourages Ernest to take up with Mollie to gain access to her headrights through manipulation and murder.
Even then, Ernest believes the relationship he cultivates with Mollie is something approaching love.
Eventually, her chilliness turns to curiosity and she meets his gaze in the mirror.
One night, a storm roils across the land as theyre having dinner.
No, we need to be quiet for a while.
They sit side by side at her long, polished dining-room table, a blanket placed on her body.
Storm … its, well, its powerful.
So we need to be quiet for a while.
Ernest tries to fill the air with idle conversation nonetheless.
Just be still, she says.
Scorsese is too busy making her a symbol.
Karen Hill, played with guts by Lorraine Bracco in Scorseses 1990 classicGoodfellas,is anything but a symbol.
Henry speaks in calming platitudes as he urges her to put down the weapon.
I couldnt hurt him, Karens voice-over proclaims, How could I hurt him?
I couldnt even bring myself to leave him.
The truth was that no matter how bad I felt, I was still very attracted to him.
Why should I give him to someone else?
The story of their marriage is written on her face.
The moment she relinquishes the gun he slams Karen to the bedroom floor and turns the weapon on her.
Then there is 1995sCasino,in which Sharon Stone is similarly cracked open.
Stone bodied every sartorial moment, wrestling attention away from De Niros Mafia-connected casino bastion.
Fur, jewels, sheer dresses, gold appliques, platinum-blonde hair piled high and taut.
In another directors hands, Ginger might have been a bauble for the thrilling turns of a criminal enterprise.
Yes, I want him fucking killed!
He slinks behind her.
You want to get rid of me?
Here I am, he says.
What follows is vicious.
Is this enough money to last you two fucking days?
Stone spits fury and pushes against Sams chest as he forces her out of their opulent home.
But she ultimately returns, looking all dressed up with nowhere to go in chinchilla fur.
Her anger has cooled into loneliness.
She lies on their bed, an ocean of emotional distance between her and Sam.
Its a picture of a marriage in which both sides are sketched out fully, rather than thinly drawn.
Glamour pulls at audiences, making them wonder whats underneath the alluring aesthetic.
She is bedridden, feverish, beset by visions.
But what is the shape of that anger?
When shes alone with her grief, how does it move through her mind and body?
I cant answer those questions.
InKillers,shes confined.
Stupid, stubborn bitch, Ernest shouts.
You think you know everything, right?!
With your Indian ways.
Ernest brings a hand to his mouth mocking Indigenous ritual before calming his barbs.Hefeels cracked open and intimately revealed.
But Mollie whose responses in Osage arent fully translated during the argument remains as tightly closed as a fist.
How does she experience her husbands cruelty?
What does she hope to gain by proceeding to be poisoned by him?
DiCaprio has played the criminal husband before.
When he finally finishes his selfish escapade, shes blunt.
Thats the last time.
I want a divorce.
He meets her frustration with outright nastiness.
Im gonna take custody of the kids.
Dont give a shot to fight it.
Itll save us both a lot of money, and I have a feeling youre gonna need it.
Of course, violence erupts.
Jordan calls his wife a vicious cunt and slaps her face.
But theres a spark to this woman that Jordan cant extinguish.
At the very end ofKillers, Mollie finally confronts Ernest.
Have you told all the truths?
Mollie asks him after his testimony.
Yes, I have.
My soul is clean now, Mollie.
I wasnt going to let him get anywhere near you and the children.
Mollies body is tense, ramrod straight.
What did you give me?
What was in the shots?
Ernests face is grim.
Insulin, he says.
Gladstone is pained yet unmoving, as restrained as she has ever been.
In place of any anger is a void.
The camera, ever reverential, doesnt follow Mollie out of the room and Ernests life.
It stays with him, fixated on what his racist bloodthirst has cost him.
Here is his out.
White people always give themselves the out.
How land acknowledgment is seen as progress because returning that land would be too radical.
But withKillers,he is far too stuck at the pitch of awe and admiration to interrogate Mollies humanity.
