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.

Manchester By The Sea

Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) is a janitor in Boston who spends his days just getting through life and his job while hopefully avoiding any social interaction along the way. While his nights are largely spent drinking alone at home or in bars with a quick fight to round off the evening. We do not know at first what has brought him to this.

If he isn’t fed up enough he then hears that his older brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) has died from a heart attack. Lee now has to return to his hometown of Manchester, a picturesque place on Massachusetts' north shore, to put his brother's affairs in order but where he also has to face many people from his past including his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams).

Then he finds out that he has been named the legal guardian of Joe's 16-year-old son Patrick (Lucas Hedges) because Patrick's mother Elise (Gretchen Mol) is an incapable alcoholic. This is a task he feels he’s not up to but he reluctantly takes it on while trying to move Patrick back with him to Boston because he really cannot bear being in Manchester any longer than necessary.

Patrick meanwhile is having his own problems coping with his father's death but at least he has his two girlfriends to help him with this.

The film moves between the past and the present, showing a time where Lee was content with his life and the present day when he clearly is not. Everything moves along at a slow, measured pace, revealing details of Lee's past bit by bit, drip feeding us the gradual unravelling of Lee’s life until when you're least expecting it, the pivotal event that altered Lee's life forever is casually tossed into the film like a hand grenade. Boom. 

Once you’ve found why he has detached himself so much from life you're inside his head and you are suddenly watching the film from a very different point of view to where you started. Brilliant.

Clearly they needed someone to play this solemn, withdrawn, complex loner who could nail miserable to a T so they sent for Affleck and the role fits him like a glove. He proves that nobody does emotional distancing like him and he's amazing from beginning to end. 

Michelle Williams is good too in her small role, as are most of the cast, but Manchester by the Sea belongs to Casey Affleck.

An absolutely brilliant film. Must see.