Sometimes you go see a movie, a real 5* rated unequivocal ‘winner’ by all who rate such things and your expectations are sky high and… and… nyeh, it was ok. I fucking hate that. The movie marketers do their thing, ply their magic and convert any third-rate sequel to a shitty original, in the minds of the critics, to ‘masterpiece’ status because its made by a big studio and stars Tom Cruise. Or Arnie. Or has the name ‘Star Wars!!’ attached to it.

And other times you see a film that’s somehow ‘quieter’, but still rated very highly. Not in any way a ‘blockbuster’ but some kind of independent movie that just gets rave reviews. Something like ‘3 Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri’, f’rinstance. Which, coincidentally, I saw last night.

And quite frankly, and in the absence of any discernible hyperbole, it is the best film ever. Ok, definitely the best film of 2018, and you might as well include 2017 in that too. Its just wonderful. How can it not be? It stars Frances McDormand, the world’s most unlikely superstar. She looks like your cleaner, never smiles and wears less make-up than I do. (For the record, just to illuminate this point; I don’t wear make-up. I AM this beautiful quite naturally). And yet she won an Oscar for Fargo (the only other real candidate for ‘best film ever’) and in 3 Billboards she simply shines. But being McDormand, she shines in the dullest of drab ways. And she does ‘dysfunctional’ better than anyone. Maybe being married to Joel Coen for all those years does that to someone, I’d be surprised if it didn’t. And best of all, even playing the tragically ‘hurt mother’ (losing a child in horrible way; not that there are good ways), she is no saccharine goody-goody. As the film progresses you gradually, systematically, lose a lot of sympathy for her, whilst she still remains a kind of heroine.

It has bouts of violence and is fantastically, drily, darkly funny all the way through. And it is quirky, in a very Fargo-esque, small-town, fucked-up, semi-psychotic American way. Its almost The definitive ‘indie’ movie. Yet is written and directed by a Brit, not a Coen.

Woody Harrelson is in it too. And he too is simply fantastic. Compassionate and menacing at the same time, but smiling as he does both.

3 Billboards doesn’t have a dance sequence by Fred Astaire, nor any significant space-rocket fighters shooting at each other. But it does have a dwarf. And it manages to leave almost everything completely unresolved, yet is very satisfying. And whilst in no way whatsoever a ‘feelgood’ movie, it leaves you feeling really good.

I fucking loved that film.

Go see.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx