"Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri"

As any writer will attest, it’s the easiest thing in the world to come up with an eye-catching premise; it’s quite another to weave a compelling story from it. In “Three Billboards outside Ebbing Missouri”, a woman puts up said notices in order to highlight what she believes is police ineptitude in investigating the horrific rape and murder of her daughter several months earlier. The fact that the story develops in a deeply involving and not entirely predictable manner is a testament to the genius of writer-director Martin McDonagh.

"Three Billboards..." (Blueprint Pictures)

The lead role of Mildred Hayes is a gift for Frances McDormand, all coldly righteous fury mingled with grim wit, but this is only one of several laudably complex characterisations; most controversially, Sam Rockwell, playing a laughably unpleasant idiot cop who just may be good at his job. Woody Harrelson does excellent work as the embattled police chief; indeed the entire supporting cast is given the opportunity to dig deep, mining humour and pathos from subtly written archetypes (e.g. Peter Dinklage’s unhappy town dwarf, John Hawkes as Mildred’s violent ex-husband, Samara Weaving as his “bimbo” girlfriend).

This is a film about the deleterious and sometimes energising effect of grief and guilt, which also prompts one to reflect on the nature of goodness and justice. As well as serving us a good few narrative curveballs, McDonagh also makes exemplary use of the bleached, Southern landscape, natural beauty co-existing uneasily with human misery and drabness. 

“Three Billboards…” is a powerfully told, compassionate, brutally beautiful film whose emotional impact lingers long after the credits roll.

"Treasure Island" / "The Last Jedi"

I ended 2017 in my home town of Stoke-on-Trent, as usual, and persuaded my mother to accompany me to the New Victoria Theatre to see their Christmas production, following on from last year’s “The Snow Queen”. This was Theresa Heskins’ rambunctious take of R.L. Stevenson’s “Treasure Island”, featuring some mild gender-tweaking, and plenty of rock-inflected music. Since we were up in the balcony in this theatre in the round, some of the ground-level action was inevitably lost to view, but the ship-board setting ensured plenty of swinging in the rigging. A large, multi-talented ensemble, too, with most of the cast also playing in the band. Jolly fun, with inevitable hints of bleakness.

"Treasure Island"

My first film of 2018 was the latest in the Star Wars canon – “The Last Jedi”. As a non-devotee, I just about managed to keep track of goings-on in terms of the struggle between the brutally autocratic largely black-clad, Caucasian First Order and the multi-ethnic, proletarian rebels. Director Rian Johnson copes well with the spectacular, space-battle aspects of the story-telling, his script full of pomposity-deflating humour. Some of the acting is inevitably one-dimensional, given the narrow focus of the characters’ various journeys, but Adam Driver impresses as the conflicted Kylo Ren; Benicio Del Toro also benefits from a darkly ambivalent role. As the middle film in a trilogy, it inevitably leaves us hanging, but it’s a solid piece of work.