At first glance, this second feature from actor-turned-writer/director Greta Gerwig appears to be yet another quirky and twee little indie feature which made the cut as the obligatory low-budget entry into the Best Picture category at this year's Academy Awards. Yet Gerwig wasn't brought in by Noah Baumbach to co-write Frances Ha and Mistress America for nothing. She has a unique voice, and a keen eye for the smaller moments in life that most people didn't realise they had forgotten or missed. Lady Bird is riotously funny, incredibly relatable (for both sexes), and features two incredible lead performances. It's also profoundly authentic, and will have many female viewers (and some male) squirming in their seats as their own awkward memories of adolescence come pouring back.
It's 2002, and Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) is an artistically-inclined teenager on the verge of leaving her Catholic high school and fleeing her home of Sacramento to attend college. She longs to be different and stand out from the crowd, opting to go by the nickname of 'Lady Bird' and dressing in a grungy, non-conformist way. She shares a relaxed relationship with her depressed father Larry (Tracy Letts), but struggles to communicate with her ball-busting but well-meaning mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf). The film covers her final days of school and her struggles to find her identity. Best friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein) is always there for her, but Lady Bird is more interested in pursuing her burgeoning sexuality and trying to fit in with the cool, richer kids. All the disappointments of teenage life await her, but she firmly believes that life will only truly start once she escapes her childhood home.
The focus is primarily on Lady Bird's concerns, but this is also a story of a young girl struggling to communicate with her mother. Marion does all she can to help her daughter find the best life for herself, such as working long shifts at the hospital and maintaining a steady routine at home, but she is also burdened with unrealistic expectations and emotionally scarred by her own abusive childhood. Their relationship is summed up in the opening scene, as Lady Bird opts to jump out of a moving vehicle and break her arm rather than listening to her mother voice an opinion. The dynamic forms the film's backbone, and their quick-tempered back-and-forths will be familiar to many. Both Ronan and Metcalf are outstanding in their roles, finding sympathy for their characters when they are at their most flawed and unreasonable. Gerwig finds the perfect balance between light and dark, taking the edge off when events get a little too familiar with some beautifully-timed comedy. Lady Bird will no doubt launch Gerwig onto bigger and better things.
Along an overgrown, disused highway somewhere outside Ebbing, Missouri, three formerly dilapidated billboards still bearing the torn remains of whatever advertisement was previously displayed there over a decade ago, have suddenly sprang back into life. Only the messages delivered aren't in the name of some big-name brand or local company, but they are the deliberately confrontational words of grieving, thoroughly pissed-off mother Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand). The first billboard reads 'Raped While Dying', followed by 'And Still No Arrests', and finally 'How Come, Chief Willoughby?' The opening scenes of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which see Mildred negotiate a deal with businessman Red Welby (Caleb Landry Jones) and quickly install the provocative messages, set up a David-versus-Goliath story, in which a justice-seeking woman sets out to shame and spring into action the police department she feels has failed her following the brutal rape and murder of her daughter.
Yet, this being a film written and directed by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, the kind of story suggested in the trailer is only the tip of a far more engaging and complex iceberg, and one that isn't afraid to take you to some incredibly dark places and urge you to accept the redemption of a truly repulsive character. The police department, led by family man and all-round likeable pillar of the community Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), take the billboards as a declaration of war, but Willoughby, being a sensible officer of the law, pays a visit to Mildred for some one-on-one time in the hope of resolving the matter peacefully. They chat almost like old friends, or former lovers who have stayed on good terms, but Mildred is unmovable in her quest. Even the revelation that Willoughby has terminal cancer and is close to death isn't enough for Mildred to think twice about her actions, and it turns out that she was already privy to this information before renting the boards. "They won't be as effective after you croak," she admits, almost like it's her way of apologising.
The role of Mildred was written specifically with McDormand in mind, and the result is her best performance since 1996's Fargo and will surely bring her second Oscar win come March. The first time we lay eyes on her she is marching into town like a gunslinger seeking revenge, dressed in blue overalls and sporting a tightly-wound bandanna. Despite the pleas of her teenage son Robbie (Lucas Hedges), who is bullied in school because of his mother's antics and performance on the local news station, as well as threats from the drunken, racist Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell), Mildred is unwavering in her strides for justice. Even her deplorable, wife-beating ex-husband Charlie (John Hawkes) voices his disapproval, but it all falls of deaf ears. Yet despite her questionable methods and finger-pointing at a police department who seem to have genuinely run into a dead end with the case, you stay with her until the end. I can't think of any other actress working today who could pull of a feat with such conviction, especially when dealing with a character who spends most of the movie keeping her real emotions close to her chest, or channelling them into rage.
McDonagh views small-town America as tightly-knit and full of big characters, a place where everybody knows everybody and gossip spreads like wildfire. In many ways, Three Billboards shares much in common with Calvary, the under-appreciated effort by the director's brother John Michael from 2014, and is structured almost like an ensemble piece. By bringing in a wealth of colourful supporting characters, played by the likes of Peter Dinklage, Abbie Cornish, Kerry Condon and Clarke Peters, as well as those already mentioned, McDonagh can explore themes of anger, bitterness, loss and loneliness on a far grander scale. While the wonderfully obscenity-laden script will keep you both laughing and wincing throughout the running-time, the film is at its most compelling when showing genuine compassion for the characters inhabiting the story. It refuses to judge anybody too harshly, even peeling back the layers of the most loathsome character in the story, the permanently hungover Dixon, who is played by a career-best Sam Rockwell. Three Billboards somehow manages to be both enormous fun and utterly heart-wrenching, and coming off the back of the underwhelming Seven Psychopaths, this is a huge stride in the right direction for the enormously talented McDonagh.
Writer/director Kenneth Lonergan hadn't made a movie for 11 years before Manchester by the Sea, a sombre drama that began to draw attention during a critically successful festival run. Receiving acclaim for You Can Count On Me back in 2000 before moving on to Margaret in 2005, the latter film spent five years in post-development hell due to a lack of budget and multiple lawsuits before limping into theatres in 2011. Such a frustrating experience would normally cause a director to fade into obscurity, but Lonergan has returned with a bang with one of the finest films of the year to prove that he is a film-maker of unfathomable potential.
The withdrawn Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) is a janitor working in Quincy, Massachusetts, spending his days fixing leaky pipes, taking out the garbage, shovelling snow, and generally taking whatever shit the tenants of the apartment block he works in dishes out. Living in a tiny, one-bed room, Lee is quiet but prone to violent outbursts, spending most nights drinking away whatever sorrows rest on his shoulders and starting fights with anybody who looks at him the wrong way. One day, he receives a phone call and is informed that his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler, coincidentally sharing the same surname as his character) has suffered a heart attack. By the time he arrives in his hometown of Manchester-by-the-Sea, Joe has passed away, and Lee is tasked with arranging the funeral and putting his brother's affairs in place.
I've admired Casey Affleck ever since I saw Good Will Hunting (1997) and later in his brother Ben's thrilling Gone Baby Gone (2007). But his performance in Andrew Dominik's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford ultimately convinced me that he is one of the finest actors of his generation, and I felt that he deserved to beat the lauded Javier Bardem to the Oscar that year. Deservedly, he won Best Actor for his work here. It's a rare skill for an actor to be able to portray such a range of emotions when massively underplaying the part. Lee is as bottled-up as one can get, clearly reaching the point of just not giving a fuck anymore. When he returns to town, people whisper his name with both anger and sympathy. Something has happened to turn him into a socially-awkward, sullen shadow of a man, but Lonergan chooses to reveal the past slowly through flashbacks.
In smaller roles, Chandler, Michelle Williams and Gretchen Mol are also as impressive as expected, but, Affleck aside, the majority of the screen-time is given to Lucas Hedges as Joe's son Patrick, who is now placed into the care of a reluctant Lee. Patrick doesn't react to his father's passing as one would expect, and instead remains a chirpy, outgoing teenager proud to have two girlfriends on the go. It's a lively, highly charismatic performance, and the complete opposite to the mopey young adult I was expecting. Themes of grief and regret run throughout the film, but the relationship between Lee and Patrick provides many moments of warmth and much-needed humour. Most writers would opt for award-baiting, tear-jerking moments of emotional outpouring, but Lonergan understands that life is rarely like that, and some wounds simply do not heal. The power of Manchester by the Sea lies within this honesty, with the windy, snowy backdrop acting almost as a window into its characters' souls.
It's 2002, and Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) is an artistically-inclined teenager on the verge of leaving her Catholic high school and fleeing her home of Sacramento to attend college. She longs to be different and stand out from the crowd, opting to go by the nickname of 'Lady Bird' and dressing in a grungy, non-conformist way. She shares a relaxed relationship with her depressed father Larry (Tracy Letts), but struggles to communicate with her ball-busting but well-meaning mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf). The film covers her final days of school and her struggles to find her identity. Best friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein) is always there for her, but Lady Bird is more interested in pursuing her burgeoning sexuality and trying to fit in with the cool, richer kids. All the disappointments of teenage life await her, but she firmly believes that life will only truly start once she escapes her childhood home.
