Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

The action takes place in the remote community of Ebbing, Missouri and a pretty miserable downbeat community it is. Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) has plenty of cause to be miserable. She works in an bleak gift shop but that isn't why she is miserable. Her daughter Angela was raped and murdered seven months ago. Now she lives with her depressed son Robbie (Lucas Hedges) while her husband Charlie (John Hawkes), who blames her for their daughter murder, has left her to be with Penelope (Samara Weaving), a woman half his age who works at the local zoo. To cap it all the town’s dwarf (Peter Dinklage) has a crush on her.

Frustrated with the police, who have made no progress on the case, Mildred rents three unused billboards on the edge of town and puts up billboards which read ‘Raped While Dying’, ‘And Still No Arrests?’, and ‘How Come, Chief Willoughby?’. 

This has the desired effect, puts the wind up the police and attracts the attention of the local media. Yes while police chief Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) manages to retain his cool, his inept and racist deputy Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell) takes offence.

He takes his ire out on Red Welby (Caleb Landry Jones), the businessman who rented Mildred the billboards, and arrests her friend Denise (Amanda Warren) on a trumped up charge.

The billboards also upset the townspeople and with Willoughby openly suffering from terminal cancer they too are less than happy with Mildred.

  

She is hauled before the police herself when she strikes out in frustration at her dentist. Then after interviewing her, Willoughby, another one who has a partner almost half his age, goes for a final romantic fling with his wife Anne (Abbie Cornish) and then kills himself before his cancer does the job. Although not before first paying for another month’s rental on the billboards. 

When the billboards are destroyed by arson, Mildred retaliates by chucking Molotov cocktails at the police station and from an impressive distance. Unexpectedly Dixon is inside, rethinking his attitude, career and life after being left a letter by Willoughby and fired by Willoughby's replacement. He ends up sharing a hospital room with Red who is recovering from the injuries Dixon inflicted on him.

Suddenly becoming the nice guy Dixon reckons he has a lead on who killed Angela but when it it turns out the man has an alibi, Mildred and Dixon together conclude that the man must be guilty of some other attack and set together to kill him anyway...

It is a wonderfully complex film in which there is an awful lot going on. It is full of action, (black) comedy, poignancy and rage (plenty of rage). It’s very Coen-ish and incidentally stars Coen favourite McDormand, who brilliantly plays a woman weather beaten and worn down by life. It is her best performance since Fargo.

Probably the film of the year, already.

The Sessions

‘The Sessions’ is based on the real story of Marc O'Brien (John Hawkes). O'Brien was a childhood victim of polio and has spent his life since encased in an iron lung, save for a few hours each day. He is almost entirely paralyzed from the neck down but retains use of all his senses and has some feeling throughout his body.

Despite this, O'Brien not only retains a sense of humour but has a positive outlook on life. He studies, passes exams and becomes a poet. Although he still remains heavily dependent on his personal carers. 

After firing a carer that he doesn’t like, he falls in love with her far more beautiful and sensitive replacement, Amanda (Annika Marks). 

One day he tells her that he loves her. Which shocks her and she disappears, perhaps realising that she has similar affection for him. Despite his predicament, he can still charm the women.

Frustrated that he will never experience love or sex, he decides at the age of 38 to lose his virginity. First, as he’s a catholic, complete with a picture of the Virgin Mary staring down at him from his wall, he has to clear this with his priest (William H. Macy). Who is a rather ‘right on’ cleric with a flowing mane of hair who believes, probably wrongly, that God may give him a free pass on this one. Perhaps our (supposedly) celibate priest also wondered if there were any 2-for-1 offers.

So enter Cheryl (Helen Hunt), a sexual surrogate. Which is a fascinating profession or maybe not, perhaps it’s just another job but not a prostitute as she makes pains to point out. . 

Her husband seems to know about her job but I find it hard to tell whether he’s bothered or not bothered about her job or simply not bothered about her.

The therapy is a success but in the process Cheryl has also discovered a place in her heart for Mark, so she also bails out before they both get too attached.

After a power cut almost kills him by deactivating his iron lung and Mark ends up in hospital, he gets chance to charm a third woman and he meets Susan (Robin Weigert) who remains his partner until the day he died. 

All his ‘women’ are present at his funeral. Along with Vera (Moon Bloodgood) who is Amanda’s replacement as one of his carers and takes him to all his therapy sessions.

It looks a bit low budget at times and doesn't zing along as it perhaps might, refusing to perhaps delve into any of the potential sub-plots it opens up. Preferring to remain focussed on its main character instead. It’s very good though with plenty of understated humour and never once does it sink into the usual Hollywood sentimentality.

Martha Marcy May Marlene

As ‘Martha Marcy May Marlene’ starts, Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) is running away, from what we’re not sure yet. She’s also pursued, by one of her new ‘family’ but strikingly he doesn’t take her back. Instead she calls her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson), whom she hasn’t spoken to for two years, but nonetheless Lucy drives three hours to pick up her younger sister.

From there they go to Lucy and her husband Ted’s (Hugh Dancy) holiday home in Connecticut. Martha won’t say much about where she’s been for the last two years, why she hasn’t called or what she’s running away from. Well apart from ‘boyfriend trouble’... ‘we had a fight’ you know.

In flashbacks we learnt that Martha has been living in a farmhouse with a host of other runaways where they are under the ‘leadership’ of the creepy and controlling, some would say charismatic, Patrick (John Hawkes). A man with a unique philosophy on life. ‘Death is but a continuation, not an end’... etc.

In this little commune, a woman's role is subservient. They all share their clothes, belongings, themselves... and sleep together on mattresses in the same room. They work around the house, in the garden and in the kitchen. They are only allowed to eat once the men have finished.

Patrick enchants Martha by singing her a song, renaming her Marcy May and making her feel as if she belongs. Which she will, once she’s undergone the initiation ceremony. Which is to be given drugs and then shagged by Patrick. Apparently, the house has many of his babies but they’re all boys...

Once she’s done a runner, Martha has problems readjusting to normal life. Her sister and her husband try to accommodate her despite her sometimes difficult attitude. Sleeping at the end of their bed whilst they are having sex etc.

Which highlights the film’s only real flaw, that she has unlearnt so many things that would have been embedded in her head from being a young child. Such as putting a swimsuit on when you swim in public and not swimming in the nude.

Otherwise it’s a clever and engrossing film, exploring how a person can get manipulated and brainwashed into an alternative way of life.

I like a film that poses more questions than answers, like this one does. Towards the end things start to happen that are simply not explained. She damages a car but whose car? Or did she? Did she really escape when she ran away or is it all so immersed in her that she may never truly escape? Is that why they didn’t come after her? Because they were confident that there was no escape in her mind and that she will eventually return of her own accord...

The film leaves us unsure of what is real. Are the things that are now happening really happening or are they just in Martha's mind? She thinks that she is being tracked down but is she? The film leaves us in the same state of mind as Martha. Confused. Wondering what is real and what isn’t. She doesn't know the answers, so how could we?

Brilliant.