By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” writer/director Martin McDonaugh’s darkly comic revenge drama, revolves around grieving Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand), whose teenage daughter was brutally raped and murdered several months ago.
Since the Ebbing Police Department has been unable to find the killer, Mildred rents three abandoned billboards on a back road to advertise their ineptitude and complacency, focusing on Sheriff William Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), who has been privately agonizing about not having solved the crime and is dying of pancreatic cancer.
Launching this outrageously merciless, one-woman crusade, Frances McDormand (“Fargo,” “Olive Kitteridge”) delivers a formidable, ferociously uncompromising performance that firmly places her on-track for another Academy Award. She’s adroitly supported by Harrelson and Sam Rockwell, as his moronic, rage-filled deputy.
Plus there’s Caleb Landry Jones as the local ad-sales agent, Peter Dinklage as the kindly car salesman who courts Mildred, Lucas Hedges as her long-suffering teenage son and John Hawkes as her abusive ex-husband.
Irish playwright-turned-filmmaker Martin McDonaugh (“The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” “The Pillowman,” “In Bruges”) specializes in agonizing emotional pain, juggling comedy and tragedy, touching on racism and misogyny, peppered with irrational, uncontrolled violence and coarse, cruel pranks.
After winning the audience award at the Toronto Film Festival, McDonaugh noted the fortunate timing: “It’s great to be putting out a film with such a strong woman lead character. Even just two months before anyone had seen it, I wasn’t sure how it was going to be taken…We worried that the darkness in the story might not allow people to laugh.”
Kudos also to British cinematographer Ben Davis, production designer Inbal Weinberg and composer Carter Burwell’s distinctive musical score.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” is an edgy, unpredictable 8, a morbidly funny film.
“The Man Who Invented Christmas” imagines Charles Dickens’ inspiration for “A Christmas Carol.”
Adapting Les Standiford’s 2008 biography, screenwriter Susan Coyne and director Bharat Nalluri introduce self-absorbed Dickens (Dan Stevens) in 1842, as he relishes his triumphal speaking tour of the United States, where “Oliver Twist” is a tremendous success.
A year and three publishing ‘flops’ later, 31-year-old Dickens is back in Victorian-era London, wrestling with writer’s block and insistent bill collectors. When he ‘pitches’ a Christmas book to his publishers, they scoff at the idea, informing him that it’s a ‘minor holiday,’ not worth the effort and expense.
After conferring with his best friend/agent John Forster (Justin Edwards) at the famed Garrick Club, Dickens decides to publish the book himself — if only he can get the inspiration to finish it.
Then, suddenly, the vivid apparition of slyly crotchety Ebenezer Scrooge (Christopher Plummer) appears, along with Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim. “We know that Dickens did carry on conversations with his characters, so that’s based on the true story, and we’ve invented his interior thoughts,” explains Susan Coyne.
While all this is happening in Dickens’ feverish imagination, he’s forced to confront several real-life dilemmas, like his wife’s pregnancy, adding to the four young children they already have. Plus, his genial, ne’er-do-well father, John (Jonathan Pryce) is once again leaning on him for loans.
The unexpected arrival of his estranged father ignites unwelcome recollections of Charles’ impoverished childhood, working in a boot-blacking factory where he was mercilessly bullied. And it soon becomes obvious that Dickens must come to terms with his inner demons before he can finish his holiday tale.
Fact and fantasy intertwine as the familiar fable unfolds. “A Christmas Carol” has never been out-of-print and is widely acknowledged as a major influence on Yuletide family and charitable traditions.
On the Granger Gauge, “The Man Who Invented Christmas” is a whimsical 6, an endearing trifle.
Sublimely talented Denzel Washington deserves better than writer/director Dan Gilroy’s tepid, convoluted thriller, “Roman J. Israel Esq.,” in which he plays the titular role, an idealistic legal-savant whose nerdy, anti-social personality places him in the Asperger range on the autism spectrum.
When his beloved, long-time partner has a heart attack, Israel realizes he can’t run the downtown Los Angeles criminal law practice alone, particularly since it’s devoted to social justice, defending the poor and downtrodden on a pro-bono basis.
After he’s turned down for a salaried position at a civil-rights project headed by Maya Alston (Carmen Ajogo), Israel takes a job a mega-firm headed by slick, high-powered George Pierce (Colin Farrell) — with whom he seems to have little in common. And then he’s faced with a crisis of conscience.
After memorizing the entire California legal code, Israel has devoted years to assembling a class-action lawsuit to challenge the pervasive system of plea bargaining, dubbing it a rigged game in which prosecutors threaten defendants with hefty prison sentences, hoping to get them to plead ‘guilty,’ even if they’re innocent, thus short-circuiting the legal process.
“Each of us is greater than the worst thing we’ve ever done,” he maintains. So incarcerating young people for a long time almost guarantees that the worst thing they’ve ever done will define the rest of their lives.
Designed as a follow-up to his melodramatic “Nightcrawler,” which eviscerated the parasitic tabloid media culture, Dan Gilroy continues his cynical, character-driven concept. Roman J. Israel is a relic from the social-activism of the ‘60s and ‘70s. And corruption, once again, is the culprit.
Denzel Washington is almost unrecognizable with a three-inch high Afro, aviator glasses and frumpy, mismatched outfits, yet his vocal eloquence is unmistakable. An anachronism in urban Los Angeles, he doesn’t own or drive a car. Instead, he walks, wearing headphones, lugging a huge leather briefcase.
On the Granger Gauge, “Roman J. Israel, Esq.” is a contrived, unfocused 5 — with a twisty, frustrating finale.
(Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
