Selfish Love in Killers of the Flower Moon and Anatomy of a Fall

“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”

- The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller

The Sad Reality of Broken Promises

Like anyone, I’m a sucker for a good true-crime podcast. In the one I’m listening to now, it’s theorized that a murder from almost 100 years ago may have had more to the story. While that may sound surprising, there’s a piece of it that isn’t. The new suspect of the murdered woman is the husband. You hear it in every podcast, TV show, or movie: if someone is killed, who do the police look at first? That’s right, the spouse. It’s quite sad when you think about it. The person who should be the last one ever to hurt them is the most likely culprit every single time.

Or consider that in 2023, 35-50% of first marriages end in divorce. It’s a reality that has become something of a cultural norm and, in many cases, especially with relationships at the center of pop culture, to be expected. Again, it’s devastating that the relationship that should be the most sacred and gently cared for is, in most cases, expected to fail.

Being that art often reflects reality, it feels rare to get films that even bother with trying to explore the complexities of marriage, often opting for shallow depictions of arguments or simply one-dimensional characters where one is the aggressor and the other is trying to be free of them. People are more intrigued by a story of deadly passion or unrequited love for another, even if it comes after their commitment to someone else. It’s a heartbreaking reality of the world we live in today.

I’m always moved when I read the above Tim Keller quote, partially because I’m lucky enough to be married to someone who fully knows and loves me, but also because it rings so true to our yearning to be who God has made us to be. Not simply to be loved when it’s convenient but to be loved unconditionally. That being said, this perspective serves as a fascinating lens to look at two marriages in film this year that are fascinatingly complex and tragically flawed.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Oxymoron that is “Cowardly Love”

Martin Scorsese’s most recent film explores the devastating true story of the dehumanization and killing that plagued the Osage Nation in the 1920s at the hands of the greed-driven white men who sought to cash in on the Osage land and family inheritances. At the center of the film's story is the relationship between Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone) and Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio).

After returning from war, where he served as a cook due to “something wrong with his gut,” Ernest goes straight to his Uncle William King Hale (Robert DeNiro) for help. As the owner of a large ranch on the reservation, “King” has ingratiated himself with the Osage people by learning their language and bestowing gifts. However, his goals have a much more dastardly intention than meets the eye. Ernest becomes his next pawn to marry into an Osage family and assume the wealth that will be passed on if the right people are taken out of the picture.

However, what seems like a standard tale of false pretenses and trickery becomes something much different when one thing becomes glaringly true: Ernest truly loves Mollie (in his very flawed way of thinking). He never seems to be with her for the promise of the money. What soon becomes clear, though, is that his love for her is far overpowered by his fear of his uncle. What follows is a devastating story of a man whose love is so warped by cowardice that he cannot see beyond his own selfish desires. His love for Mollie is so lacking in a knowledge of who she is and what matters most to her that all it becomes is a superficial relationship lacking any true meaning.

Killers of the Flower Moon not only shows a nation of people who were abused, neglected, and deceived at every turn but also a marriage plagued by the same ignorance and selfishness. Mollie endures so much sorrow and loss, but the look on her face when she realizes that the one man in the world she thought loved her unconditionally, had betrayed her trust by actively plotting the deaths of her family members shows that cowardice has no place in a marriage built to last.

Anatomy of a Fall: The Devastating Consequences of Self-Righteousness

In Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, what begins as a seemingly standard family drama quickly becomes an in-depth and fascinating courtroom drama. A well-known writer, Sandra Voyter (Sandra Huller), and her son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner) discover their husband/father dead on the ground, seemingly after jumping out the 3rd story window. However, I’m sure you guessed that there is most likely much more to the story.

What follows is a public dissection of the couple’s mental state, arguments, and motives leading up to the day of the incident. The free-for-all nature of the French court (which I’m fascinated about whether it’s actually like this) presents a captivating narrative of what can happen when both parties in a marriage are grasping onto their own selfish desires like their lives depend on it. The film never overtly asks you to pick sides, but it certainly presents enough information for you to make your own conclusion as to what took place.

However, one thing is crystal clear: marriages filled with pride and self-importance will always implode and hurt everyone around them, whether it is a fatal implosion, an emotional implosion, or an implosion of trust from an adjacent loved one. The difficult-to-watch nature of the courtroom scenes is founded upon the tragedy of watching a marriage so completely void of love and selflessness.

So Are the Films Worth Watching?

100% yes and yes. Both films are beautifully made and captivatingly tragic. Following both films, I sort of just sat in my seat for a few minutes as the credits rolled, desperately wanting to talk to someone else in the theater about it. I was so moved by both the stories as a whole and the characters that fueled them that, despite their long runtimes, I immediately wanted a rewatch.

From a performance standpoint, every single actor is at the top of their game. Each lead in these films will get an Oscar nomination. I have zero doubts about that. DiCaprio plays Ernest with such an educated ignorance that shouldn’t be confused with stupidity but is nonetheless both diabolical and well-meaning. Lily Gladstone brings a gentle strength to Mollie that can always be truly seen through her eyes as she watches tragedy unfold around her. Sandra Huller plays Sandra with such an enigmatic solemnity that you can simply tell she knows every single thing about her character and her motivations.

The Takeaway

Both films are incredibly complex, offering up both a historical tragedy and a fictional one. They pose difficult questions about marriage in an age where marriages are falling apart at an alarming rate. We are asked to consider our involvement in these stories: how are we taking advantage of others for our own gain? How are we putting our own desires before those we claim to love? How are we hurting those we’ve promised to protect?

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

- 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

While extremely different, both these films have earned their places as two of the year’s best.