I had every intention of doing in depth, brilliant reviews of every film I saw over vacation, but there is much television to watch and I have to go back to work tomorrow so... Of the 7 movies I saw over vacation:
I have chosen my favorite. I have links to the ones I have reviewed already and will add the one to LADYBIRD when I get around to writing it. The world will need to continue to spin without me revealing what I thought of the last two on the list. They were all great - but plenty has been written about them because of Ridley Scott excising Kevin Spacey from ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD and replacing him with Christopher Plummer and because STARWARS is, well STARWARS.
Okay - geeze, don't start whining - here are my thumbnail reviews.
AtMitW - Michelle Williams is unbelievable, Charlie Plummer is heartbreaking and Christopher Plummer clearly is some sort of mega-human. And I got to see Mark from BROADCHURCH (Andrew Buchan) as a loving dad/junkie wreck - quit making me sad Andrew Buchan. Make a romantic comedy for heaven's sake, let a girl just enjoy your face without knowing how tortured you are! The story was a bit long, but it had me wikipedia-ing the story for an hour after, so clearly, I didn't want to let go it it.
SW:TLJ - In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit I slept through most of the middle of this movie. I can't help it. Flying through space and shit blowing up makes me snooze in self defense. But I went to the bathroom, looked at a recap and caught up for the excellent ending. My favorite part was the Cantina/Casino and those giant bunny/horse thingies and, of course, Benicio del Toro and his speech impediment. And yes, I cried at the end when Rey and Ren talk about her parents. Because I am not made of stone.
And now to the business at hand...
I'm not going to make you wait for it. THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI beat the competition by a hair. I have to say that LADYBIRD gave me a bit more of the feels and was better constructed, but for me, movies are all about performance. While LADYBIRD's performances were flawless - so were THREE BILLBOARDS. And BILLBOARDS had more of them.
Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson get major billing - richly earned. I have loved McDormand and Rockwell in every single thing I have seen them in EVER. I am not ashamed that my favorite McDormand performance is in RAISING ARIZONA (
Gotta have his dip-tets!) and Rockwell will always be Guy (
What's my last name???) from GALAXY QUEST. Harrelson is excellent often (ZOMBIELAND and TRUE DETECTIVE most recently) although he doesn't have one performance that I love above all others.
All three of them are tremendous.
McDormand is steel. She plays blue collar Mildred whose daughter has been murdered. She knows she wasn't a great mamma to her little girl when she was alive. A heartbreaking flashback of her last conversation with her daughter and her treatment of her surviving son show that she is often, with her children and the world at large, far more interested in scoring points than understanding others' perspectives. And she takes no prisoners when she demands that the local police keep the heat on the investigation of her daughter's murder.
Rockwell looks like he is going to be the goofy sidekick. He seems an unredeemable buffoon, but as the story unwinds, he shows us his soft white underbelly. And a little shout-out here to Sandy Martin who plays his Mama - she has been acting since the year I was born - how have I never seen her before? Rockwell has a slack-jawed look and an ineffectual sneer that do a lot of heavy lifting in an otherwise nuanced performance.
I can't say much about Harrelson. He is the moral compass of the movie until he isn't. Or is he? His best day ever is a montage of great parenting, a loving marriage and a stunning choice. Damn, Wood, way to bring it.
But then you have the secondary characters. Lucas Hedges, Peter Dinklage, Caleb Landry Jones and John Hawkes are all in this movie too - an embarrassment of riches!
What the heck, Lucas Hedges? Is is your job to break my heart every Christmas vacation? Last year I met him in MANCHESTER BY THE SEA and I'm not bragging, but he was in my town to film that. As a matter of fact, I was at Rite Aid right across the street from the funeral parlor where he was shooting a scene. So we are practically acquaintances. He was in both LADYBIRD and THREE BILLBOARDS which I saw back to back. The combined impact of his two performances was enough to rattle my teeth. This kid has talent. He is still kind of lumpy and teenaged, but I can not wait to see how he evolves as an actor. He played similar grieving kids in MbtS and 3B - but they were definitely two different guys. More on his LADYBIRD performance when I get around to that one.
I have loved Peter Dinklage since THE STATION AGENT and his Tyrion Lannister has only made me love him more. He is a bit of a sad sack in this movie, but not as closed off as in TSA. He is kind of a pit of need, but a sexy, self-aware, stalwartly dependable pit of need. And his jawline is magnificent, both aesthetically, and as a way of showing the tension his character has to deal with in his small town life every day.
I knew Caleb Landry Jones had recently freaked me out in a movie lately and it took IMDB-ing this film to remind me where I had seen him. He was the asshat brother in GET OUT which I watched three times in two days this fall. His performance here was strong, but what really got me was the fact that I couldn't ID where I'd seen him previously. Part of that could be my menopause brain, but part of that could be his having a face that essentially looks the same all the time, as faces do, but at the same time being unrecognizable from role to role. I call this the Jessica Chasten effect. I saw her in THE HELP and THE DEBT on the same day and looked her up twice because I couldn't believe it was her in both roles.
And finally John Hawkes. He makes me feel funny inside. From Uncle Teardrop in WINTER'S BONE to the creepy cult leader in MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE the the thankfully not terrifying Mark in THE SESSIONS (an iron lung has never looked sexier) - he has a charisma that just can not be ignored. As Mildred's mercurial ex, he has a Just-for-Men dyed head of hair that could stop a bullet, a 19 year old girlfriend who smells like poop (don't blame me, it's in the script), a mean streak and a right hook that comes out of nowhere. It's a small role, but it packs a punch.
So even though I think that LADYBIRD is a better movie - this is the movie that I most enjoyed - well maybe "enjoyed" is not the right word, but I couldn't look away, I didn't want to at any point. So I will just call it my best moviegoing experience of vacation week.
