Oscar, So Dark. Unlike 1917 and Jojo Rabbit, Quentin Tarantino’s latest Hollywood fantasy is a tragic misfire.

Having taught college cinema and history classes in Hollywood for the past fifteen years, I sometimes have to check my own reactions to the most ostensibly popular and successful period dramas of our current crop of films. The appropriately titled Darkest Hour (Dir. Joe Wright) and Phantom Thread (Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson) were two such examples.