I’ll preface this by saying I’m no movie buff. However, I definitely watch more modern/newly released movies than the average Joe. With that being said, how much blame do I deserve for not understanding Power Of the Dog before looking it up on YouTube? I’d say I’m at an exactly average level of intelligence (bring on the jokes) and I didn’t pick up on an absolutely essential element of the film.

At what point can you knock a movie for this? Is it completely my fault for not understanding their subtleties, or what the academy would call genius?

It seems like there’s a responsibility on the filmmaker to make it abundantly clear what’s happening in the movie. If your movie caters to smart people/movie buffs, does that make it great? Or are the aforementioned groups just jerking it off because they “got it”