‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ debuts at Cannes: Martin Scorsese epic draws raves for Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone

Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” premiered Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival to near-universal acclaim and what trade sites estimated was a nine-minute standing ovation upon its completion.

“At 80, Martin Scorsese has finally made a Western, and it packs a wallop,” Deadline’s Pete Hammond wrote in his rave review. “There are many ways to spoil the sheer pleasure of watching a master filmmaker handle a vast tale like this, working at the top of a very impressive game at a time when many have retired. I won’t do that except to say with a length of 3 1/2 hours the filmmaker and his longtime editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, don’t seem to be wasting any time. Yes, it feels truly epic in many ways, but all in service to the story. I never looked at my watch.”

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Years in the making – Scorsese began shooting “Killers of the Flower Moon” in the spring of 2021 – the 206-minute epic is based on David Grann’s 2017 non-fiction book of the same name. Apple describes the film thusly: “At the turn of the 20th century, oil brought a fortune to the Osage Nation, who became some of the richest people in the world overnight. The wealth of these Native Americans immediately attracted white interlopers, who manipulated, extorted, and stole as much Osage money as they could before resorting to murder. Based on a true story and told through the improbable romance of Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), “Killers of the Flower Moon” is an epic Western crime saga, where real love crosses paths with unspeakable betrayal.”

This is the first time Scorsese has worked with both DiCaprio and Robert De Niro in the same feature, and each actor scored strong reviews for their respective performances. Writing for Indiewire, critic David Ehrlich called DiCaprio’s performance his best ever. “The former matinee idol has never been shy about playing low-lifes and scum-bums, but his nuanced and uncompromising turn as the cretinous Ernest Burkhart mines new wonders from the actor’s long-standing lack of vanity,” Ehrlich wrote.

“DiCaprio has never gone this far to the dark side, daring us to follow along as Ernest bumbles his way through a stone-cold ‘Gaslight’-style plot to steal his wife’s fortune,” Variety critic Peter Debruge wrote in his positive review that also dinged the film’s running time.

“De Niro is deliciously slippery here, kind of a Donald Trump-like figure who believes he is helping the people who seem to revere him, but of course is really just exploiting them while keeping a smile on his face,” Hammond wrote.

But it was Gladstone who scored not just the loudest ovation following the premiere but the most effusive praise. 

“As good as those frequent Scorsese collaborators are, however, the revelation for many will be the wondrous Lily Gladstone as Mollie Kyle, the woman unfortunate enough to marry gold-digger Ernest,” David Rooney wrote for The Hollywood Reporter. “Many of us have been waiting impatiently for Gladstone to land a substantial part since her piercingly sensitive work as a lonely ranch hand in Kelly Reichardt’s ‘Certain Women.’ And it’s taken a director frequently criticized for his scarcity of fully dimensional female characters not only to provide one but to make her the wounded heart of the movie.”

“In so many ways, though, this is Lily Gladstone’s movie,” Bilge Ebiri wrote for Vulture. “She plays Mollie with a mix of standoffishness and exhausted hope. She can tell early on that Ernest is out for her money. So is every white man around her. But she comes to see charm and slivers of decency in him, too. As the horrors mount around her, Mollie navigates her queasy, gathering suspicions as well as her affection for her husband.”

“Gladstone steals the show,” wrote Anne Thompson for Indiewire in a piece about the film’s awards chances. “An actress who was on the verge of giving up her profession, she holds the screen against two powerful movie stars.”

“Whether Lily Gladstone decides to campaign for lead actress or supporting (and there’s a case for either), a spot will be reserved for her in an acting lineup,” Clayton Davis wrote in his own awards take for Variety. “That’s because her powerfully complex role in Apple Original Films’ ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’ which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival on a rainy Saturday night, is too good to ignore.”

About the Oscar prospects: The early consensus suggests “Killers of the Flower Moon” will be a formidable contender as many pundits expected, with the Apple release potentially lined up for numerous nominations for its actors, Scorsese, and the impressive roster of craftspeople (including editor Schoonmaker, cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, production designer Jack Fisk, costume designer Jacqueline West, and composer Robbie Robertson).

But as the song once said: Waiting is the hardest part. Following its Saturday premiere and the online response, audiences will now have to wait months to see “Killers of the Flower Moon.” The film will debut in theaters thanks to a deal with Paramount beginning on October 6 before a nationwide rollout on October 20. Until then, here are some more tweets about the movie:

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