I should have loved Slow West. People call it, for better or worse, as if Wes Anderson made a Western. That is not the case. Slow West may have his sense of pacing when it comes to the editing room, but it doesn't know how it use it. As such, Slow West is void of tension or sufficient humour. I don't mind wistful Westerns on small treks across the wilderness, Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man is in my top 10 of all-time, but Slow West doesn't have the material. To its credit, the music and the photography for the most part are gorgeous. It's a film with a confident style, but an inadequate one. Especially at the end, the production design fails to look lived-in, though fortunately the costume design does. Ultimately, the story is just too thin, Westerns are supposed to say something about the American dream, but it feels like Slow West picked on it just to be stylish. I's not a failure, the tragic irony at its end is obvious but it isn't stilted as the film's bloodless deaths still carry their weight, it's just a missed opportunity.
6/10
6/10