THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI - BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Closing Night Gala

With THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI, writer-director Martin McDonagh (IN BRUGES) has created a genuinely surprising, slow-paced character drama that's also scattered with his trademark dark, filthy humour. But don't be fooled by the trailer that's basically a "best of" some of the funniest bits. This is a much slower, darker and in some senses profound drama that he's created before, and to my mind, all the better for it. 

The starting point of the film is that Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand - FARGO) is angry the local police have not found the man that brutally raped and murdered her daughter Angela. In a fit of frustration and pique, she hires three old billboards outside of the town on a little-used road and puts up a provocative sign asking for justice from police Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson - WOTPOTA). This sets of a series of events that seem to spiral out of control in a tat for tat revenge plot.  It pits Mildred against Willoughby and his stupid racist deputy Dixon (Sam Rockwell - MOON) and Dixon against the poor schmuck who sold Mildred the billboard space (Caleb Landry Jones - TWIN PEAKS) and the town against Mildred.  As her violent ex-husband's hapless young girlfriend points out, violence begets violence. And that's the point when Mildred (and we) realise that the point of the film isn't to find out who did it, and to apportion blame, but to get to a point where we can just let it go.

I loved this film for three reasons. First, as with all McDonagh films, there's a strand of nasty humour that I absolutely adore. Second, McDormand's performance is genuinely award-worthy - not simply for the angry swearing but for the profound pain that underlies it, and invokes our sympathy even as she does selfish, near-unhinged things. Third, I am so rarely surprised by cinema, but this movie totally surprised me three times.  It took characters and events in directions I couldn't have predicted but which made sense and surprised me. I have real respect for authors who can take a character that I initially hate and turn my opinion around and that's what happened here - and it was utterly satisfying. 

So a great film - if deeper and darker and more considered in its pacing than McDonagh's previous work. This may disappoint some fans but I hope they appreciate it for the layered and disturbing but ultimately hopeful work that it is. 

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI has a running time of 115 minutes and is rated R. The movie played Venice, London and Toronto 2017. It opens in the USA on November 10th; in Australia and New Zealand on January 1st; in Italy, Spain and the UK on January 12th; in Argentina, Germany and Singapore on January 25th; in Philippines on February 14th; and in France on February 28th. 

LADY BIRD - BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Day 11

LADY BIRD is a funny, moving, beautifully observed relationship drama centring around the teenage girl of the title.  It's an assured directorial debut from writer-actor Greta Gerwig (MISTRESS AMERICA) and features another impressive performance from Saoirse Ronan (ON CHESIL BEACH) in the lead role, fearlessly matched by Laurie Metcalf (ROSEANNE) as her mother.  This relationship is at the heart of the film, with its class-frustrations echoed in Lady Bird's relationship with her long-time best friend.  To be sure, we also see the 17 year old navigate relationships with boyfriends too, but these aren't at the heart of the film

Christine McPherson is a quirky, smart but frustrated teenager who adopts the Lady Bird persona to mark herself as different from the bland Sacramento society in which she lives.  She dreams of moving to New York and attending a liberal arts college where she'll find people with interests similar to her own. The central tragedy of this film is that she takes that frustration out on those who love her the most, principally her mother Marion.  Marion is another strong personality, and as much as she loves her daughter, she's frustrated that Christine doesn't appreciate what her parents have sacrificed to put her through private school.  Marion is also deeply hurt when she discovers that Christine has been mocking their house as being "on the wrong side of the tracks" because it doesn't live up to the flashier houses that some of her friends live in.  This relationship is at the very heart of the film and is so relatable and brilliantly observed that it's worth watching the film for that alone.

But there's so much more to admire in this film. Christine is oblivious to the fact that her father (a beautifully tender performance from Tracy Letts) has lost his job.  And although he's not the centre of the film there's such humanity in seeing this highly qualified man having to apply for the same graduate entry jobs that his also over-qualified son is applying for.  He seems to be a truly selfless and decent man, and reminded me a lot of Willem Dafoe's character in THE FLORIDA PROJECT.  I also loved the relationship between Christine and her childhood best friend - and the way Christine ditches her for a more glamorous set to attract a new boyfriend.  It's a betrayal and reconciliation we've seen a million times in teen comedies, but so much more authentic and real here.  Finally, I loved the way Gerwig handled Christine's love life, and a particularly touching scene between Ronan and her boyfriend played by Lucas Hedges (MANCHESTER BY THE SEA). My only minor criticism of the film is that I wanted to see more of that relationship after that scene - it felt strange to me that it didn't continue.

Overall, this is a truly impressive directorial debut from one of the most original and intelligent voices in cinema.  I really admire Gerwig's mission to give us something that feels more authentic than typical coming of age dramas, and her willingness to show life as it is - financial struggles, selfishness, arguments, even Christine's deliberate acne - the movie we LIVE rather than the movie that plays in our head, as she said in the post-film Q&A. 

LADY BIRD has a running time of 94 minutes and is rated 15 for very strong language  and brief strong nudity. LADY BIRD played Telluride, Toronto and London 2017. It will be released in the USA on November 3rd, in the UK on December 29th, and in Spain on May 4th 2018. The film has a running time of 93 minutes.

YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE - Day 11 - BFI London Film Festival 2017

The following is a group review from Meester Phil, Duncan and Nicki and I:

Lynne Ramsay (WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN) returns to our screens with the extreme revenge thriller YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE.  Joaquin Phoenix plays an extremely disturbed man who was abused by his father as a child and takes care of his mother as an adult.  He's also a veteran who now earns a living rescuing people for money armed with a blunt hammer.  At the start of the film he's commissioned by a politician who's wife just committed suicide to find their runaway daughter who's been captured by a paedophile ring.  Except his exfiltration is messed up by some corrupt cops. At that point, the film goes into a revenge thriller involving potentially some politicians and maybe the idea that the dad was somehow molesting the daughter. The film is deliberately tricksy with the timeline and motivations and how far we can trust the slippery memory and perception of the lead character. 

Duncan and Nicki describe the movie as too arthouse, bizarre, all over the place and difficult to follow.  They came out wondering what the point was.  And we're still sitting in the bar trying to figure out what exactly happened. Even Meester Phil conceded that Lynne Ramsay may have been being too obtuse for her own good.  But everyone did love the cinematography - particularly the way in which Lynne Ramsay used extreme close-ups and almost shot from the victims point of view, looking up at a looming killer.   Meester Phil in particular loved the use of mirror imagery, lights through rain, blurred imagery, and the beautiful and impactful shots of underwater scenes. All agree that it was visually great.  Finally, we all really loved Jonny Greenwood's unique and dramatic score, and the use of already existing music for juxtaposition.  There are some very twee songs that underscore some very violent scenes and it works brilliantly.

My final comment is that a lot of the way that violence and revenge was handled reminded her of Park Chan Wook. I walked out of the film thinking that Ramsay had watched a lot of the Vengeance trilogy and taken something of Lynch's use of music.  

YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE has a running time of 85 minutes. The film is rated 15 for strong violence, injury detail and child sex abuse as a theme. The film played Cannes 2017 where it won Best Screenplay alongside THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER and Joaquin Phoenix won Best Actor.  It also played London 2017. It opened in 2017 in  Belgium, France and Spain. It opened earlier in 2018 in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Romania. It opens on March 9th in the UK, Ireland and Norway; on March 22nd in Denmark, Greece, Croatia and Russia; on April 6th in the USA; on April 13th in Poland; on April 26th in Germany and in Sweden on April 27th.

THE FLORIDA PROJECT - Day 11 - BFI London Film Festival 2017

THE FLORIDA PROJECT is a beautifully shot and acted social drama that's a rightly tough watch.  It tells the tale of three kids living hand-to-mouth in motels in Orlando, a stone's throw from Disneyworld and yet a world away from rich kids being indulged.  The star of the film is Brooklyn Kimberly Prince, who plays a young girl called Moonee.  She's very precocious and full of attitude that she's learned from her young and damaged mother Halley (Bria Vinaite).  Halley barely has enough money to buy food but somehow has money for cigarettes. She so feckless with money that when she has it she wastes it and then turns tricks to get more.  It's hard not to hate her, but then you realise that she probably experienced as dysfunctional a childhood as her daughter is currently experiencing.

So what we get in this film is a two-hour portrait of an unfit mother and I spent most of the film inwardly anxious that her kid should be lifted out of this and into care. And that offset what I think was meant to be an enjoyable portrait of kids getting up to capers - scamming people for free ice cream and whatnot in a jaunty comedy.  I was just too angered by the social trauma to be amused.  I also found that Moonee's antics started to grate. I'll freely admit that this is a highly subjective criticism, but I'm not used to having small kids around and I just found her behaviour deeply annoying. In fact, for me the most memorable and affecting performance in the film was Willem Dafoe's motel manager who exhibits common sense and humanity in a performance against type and worthy of awards recognition. I also think the heightened saturated colour and cinematography is some of the most memorable of this festival.

THE FLORIDA PROJECT has a running time of 115 minutes and is rated R. 

THE LOVERS - Day 11 - BFI London Film Festival 2017

Azazel Jacobs' THE LOVERS is a light, art-house version of IT'S COMPLICATED in which husband and wife Mary and Michael, who are both cheating on each other, discover that they're actually attracted to each other again.  The first hour of the film proceeds with hardly any dialogue - the emotional arc is all conveyed through looks, texts, reactions.  It's really quite wonderful to see and you need actors like Debra Winger and Tracey Letts to pull it off and sustain the audience's interest. The second thirty minutes of the film sees the culmination of all this lying  takes its toll - both on the couple, their son and their lovers. I have to say that I was a bit surprised in how Jacobs decided to resolve the issues, and that the film is pretty forgettable, but I certainly enjoyed it while it lasted. 

THE LOVERS has a running time of 94 minutes. The film played Tribeca, Melbourne and London 2017 and was released earlier this year in the USA and Canada.

DOWNSIZING - BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Day 10

DOWNSIZING is a deeply patronising movie that pulls of the remarkable feat of being both annoying liberal and socially conscious AND offensively racist. There's probably a decent 45 minute episode of Black Mirror in there somewhere, but the surrounding 90 minutes of meandering, indulgent padding renders the whole work frustrating and meaningless.

The big concept of the film is that a bunch of Norwegian scientists have invented a way to miniaturise humans to 5 inches tall. And if humans can do this, they can leave a much lighter environmental impact, as well as use their current net wealth to live a deeply luxurious life. After all, you may not be able to afford a 10,000 sq ft mansion but you can probably afford one the size of a shoebox. This range of motives for "downsizing" reflects a parody of the cultures that DOWNSIZING deals with. So the liberal touchy feely hippie Scandies downsize to save the world and their mini-colony looks like The Shire. By contrast, Americans downsize to afford a luxury retirement in Disney like gated communities. 

Of course, this being (a piss-poor attempt at) sci-fi, none of the actual world-building makes sense. The downsized wouldn't survive rain or insects and there's an irony in the amount of energy being created in the downsizing probably making climate change worse. None of this would matter if the story was captivating and you cared about the characters. But the story is all over the place. Is this about an everyman recreating his life once his wife leaves him? Is it about finding yourself on a gap year trip to Norway? It is a piece of propaganda about climate change? Or is an undercover expose about illegal immigrant working conditions? It's like writer-director Alexander Payne through Big Ideas in the air like so much confetti and the result is a baggy, poorly scripted and edited mess that outstays its welcome. Worst of all, much of its comedy in the latter half of the film lies in taking the piss out of a Vietnamese woman's strong accent. In 2017. This is just flabbergastingly offensive on a Jar Jar Binks level. 

DOWNSIZING has a running time of 135 minutes. The film is rated 15 for strong language, drug misuse and sex references.  The movie played Venice, Toronto and London 2017 and will go on release in Spain and the USA on Dec 22nd, in Australia, New Zealand and France on Dec 26th, in Norway and Turkey on Jan 5th, in Argentina and Bulgaria on Jan 11th, and in the UK, Germany and Sweden on Jan 18th.