WOW.

When I started hearing buzz that this movie was going to sweep all the awards, I was pretty doubtful. Most of those movies tend to be, well, boring. The dialogue typically speaks like a long winded PBS documentary from the 80s that I’d fall asleep watching during a substitute teacher day in elementary school.

I knew this movie is based on a book; one that I’ll never read, since after you watch the movie, the book is forever ruined, but nothing else beyond that. After a quick Google search, I found out that it’s set in Montana in the 1920s, which may be redundant. Has Montana changed since the 1920s? Doesn’t it still look like that with cattle and horses and cowboys who have a deep distaste for women and anthrax always around the corner?

Accent wise, the Doctor Strange voice articulation is a bit off putting, because even though I’ve never met someone who was raised in the nether regions of lower Canada, I’m guessing they don’t have a vague American accent peppered with some southern dialect. He almost got it. SO CLOSE. SOCLOSE.

The film starts with brothers Phil (Cumberbatch) and George (Plemons) and their pack of merry cowboys shuffling some cattle from a prairie to the outside of a restaurant. Was this a town? Was this a stopover? I didn’t really understand why the cows were just hanging out near this shanty saloon run by widow Rose (Dunst) and her son (Smit-McPhee). After celebrating moving the cows, Phil turns his vitriol from verbally destroying his brother to actually ripping apart Rose’s son, Peter’s flower origami decorations on the table. Phil also apparently hates singing and general happiness and screams at other customers for celebrating a bit too loudly next to their table.

Rose, who should have been named Shrinking Violet, breaks down in the kitchen over all of this and George comforts her and then I guess falls in love with her? To be fair, she made a fairly decent meal for them, had beds for them all to sleep that evening, and was probably the only eligible single female for thousands of miles of cows. George decides to bring her back to their ranch in the middle of East Jesus Nowhere and get married. Being forced to now also live with Phil, the shepherd for not only cows, but also the devil, Rose descends into alcoholism almost immediately.

It’s casually mentioned throughout the movie that Phil’s mentor was some John Wayne-esque buckaroo named Bronco Henry. He taught Phil everything about the ranch world and Phil keeps him firmly planted on a toxic masculine pedestal, which somewhat explains his disdain for the more tender Peter.

Meanwhile, Peter, consistently passive and quiet, is shown to be going to school to be a doctor and when he comes home for the summer, easily catches a rabbit to dissect in his room. Ahh, just a normal college kid with serial killer tendencies. What’s brewing under there Peter? Is this foreshadowing?

(Hint: it’s always foreshadowing)

The movie picks up more manly steam when Peter catches Phil bathing in a river (EW) and finds magazines in the barn depicting naked guys with the name Bronco Henry written on them.

Wait. Why is his name on them? This is the 20s, when being gay was not only something to be deeply hidden, but they were out in the isolated country, where even being open minded is outright hated. Wait. That’s the 2020s. Let’s rewind.

1925. Ok, yes, probably also not down with gay people.

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SO WHO WRITES HIS NAME ON HIS GAY PORN AND LEAVES IT IN A BARN?

Apparently, Bronco Fucking Henry. What a badass.

Peter starts to realize that his mom is dying; physically from the bottles of liquor she’s funneling down her throat and mentally from Phil’s torment, so he decides to take matters into his own hands, since George apparently gives zero fucks (damn, prospects in Montana were bleak back in the day). After winning over Phil by trying to be a cowboy and leading him to be his mentor, Peter starts to put his plan together. Though not specifically said out loud, it’s implied that Bronco Henry had a sexual relationship with Phil and it’s something he’s never dealt with or gotten over – it appears that he was deeply in love with him. What Phil sees in Peter is the prospect of someone who gets past the gruff (and god awful smelly) side of Phil to see that there is a (tiny) human side of him, stuffed deep down in his boots caked with cow shit.

Unfortunately, Peter has to save his mom, who he actually loves, as opposed to Phil, who is a giant fucking asshole made up of sewn together battered saddlebags. Phil offers a kind gesture to Peter by hand making him a rope, but is despaired to find his sister-in-law drunkenly sold the cowhides he would have used to a local Native American tribe to spite him for being a dick. (Go Rose!!)

Peter offers Phil a cowhide he cut himself and Phil overflows with pride and and the generosity of someone who seems to really “get” him. Peter forgets to mention that he cut the cowhide off of a dead cow rotting in a field, riddled with anthrax. Whoopsie.

Almost immediately Phil becomes ill and before he can give Peter the completed rope, dies in what seems like a matter of hours.

To be fair, it was probably a long ass ride to the nearest hospital and doctors back then didn’t have ICU grade recovery systems. Also, Peter never told anyone what he could be afflicted with so I’m assuming they would have given Phil a shot of whiskey and told him to walk it off.

George is sad that his brother died, even though he treated him like absolute crap, but he quickly puts that aside when he realizes that his wife has stopped drinking and they can finally be happy!

The last scene shows a gloved Peter, casually stuffing the anthrax rope under his bed. Obsessed with that strong symbolism of the literal string that brought them together that he destroyed so easily to save someone else he loved. *chef’s kiss*

Hopefully, Peter later goes on to tell their housekeeper not to vacuum under there.

Overall, its a great story and it played out well on screen. The mood, obviously, was overwhelmingly melancholy and not just because its set on a dusty ranch without a Target or Publix in sight. All the actors land their marks and their roller coaster sized arcs and the twist at the end hits just right; even though you’ve been watching him literally hate every single person in the movie, at the end, Phil’s death leaves a rugged scar.

Grade: A