alex mooney’s review published on Letterboxd:
on a strictly image basis this is probably scott’s dullest/ugliest film (that i’ve seen) but don’t let that fool you, there’s a lot more going on here than its prestige surfaces and marketing would have you believe. first two chapters (and much of the third) are, to my shock, a rather expertly modulated comedy of errors and clashing thwarted egos, using the rashomon template to cultivate this frequently-electric sense of cruel irony that’s maintained across some really tricky tonal tightropes. there’s also an aesthetic playfulness (despite the grey palette) in how it captures subjectivity through rhyme and difference that’s later brutally wielded against the audience when The Truth is finally shown to us. often corny in the ridley scott way but not, thankfully, in the pandering Me Too way i’d feared.