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    Holiday Movie Rush has Arrived

    It’s here! The onslaught has begun. So, glut yourself on turkey and then glut yourself on movies, because holiday film season is upon us.

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    Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

    In any form, great writing is a joy to behold. On the movie screen, pair it with skilled actors and you’re more than halfway home to a memorable experience.

    Three Billboards… gets all the way home.

    Writer/director Martin McDonagh provides his stellar ensemble with smart, insightful dialog that crackles with bite, poignancy and scattershot hilarity. His tale is offbeat but urgent and welcome, speaking as it does to grief, compassion, and navigating the contrasts between the good and evil in our flawed selves.

    Frances McDormand is sensational as Mildred, a woman still haunted by the unsolved murder of her daughter seven months earlier. Passing by a series of abandoned billboards on her rural drive home one evening, Mildred decides to rent them, publicly asking Sheriff Willoughby (Woody Harrelson, capping off a year of multiple great performances) why there have been no arrests.

    McDormand crafts Mildred with meaningful layers, as a foul-mouthed firebrand lashing out at injustice and sorrow with a defiant lack of concern for consequence. She is absolutely award-worthy, as are Harrelson and Sam Rockwell. As their character arcs take unexpected detours, the film displays its relevant social conscience through both subtlety and aggression.

    Behind Three Billboards… are performers able to create rich, indelible characters and a bold filmmaker whose vision and instincts have never been more on point.

    Grade: A-

    Coco

     

    Coco follows Miguel (well voiced by young Anthony Gonzalez). Miguel is supposed to make shoes, like the great-great-grandmother who taught herself the craft when her husband left her to pursue his dreams of being a musician. Miguel would rather be a musician himself, so he “borrows” the guitar of a long-dead hometown hero to play in the talent show during Dia de los Muertos.

    One thing leads to another and Miguel finds himself a living boy in the Land of the Dead.

    There are a number of things Coco does quite right. Though its themes are reminiscent of other Pixar films—Ratatouille, in particular—the cultural execution is a welcome change in a long and Euro-centric list of movies.

    The film is also characteristically gorgeous, many frames spilling over with vivid color and imagery.

    Coco also tells a satisfying story that packs an emotional wallop. Like the animation giant’s 2009 masterpiece Up, Coco invests in elderly characters and celebrates death as a tragic but inevitable consequence of life.

    The structure by now has become common, with too many notions borrowed from other Pixar films. Worse, the laughs are rarely hearty and the genuine emotion is saved for the climax, leaving too much time spent with little serious audience connection.

    That’s the tough thing about being Pixar, though, isn’t it? We’ve become so accustomed to treasures that we disregard a lovely, heartfelt piece of family entertainment. Coco is no Toy Story, but it’s a lovely film.

    Grade: B+

     

    Roman J. Israel, Esq.

     

    Roman J. Israel is a character. And Roman J. Israel, Esq. is a fine character study, one that can’t quite use that device for all the resonant insight it’s aspiring to.

    Denzel Washington is characteristically terrific as a savant-like attorney with decades fighting for civil rights amid the “dominant tendencies of society.” Slowly, he’s seduced by the dark side, succumbing to the high-rolling lifestyle that comes with working for the suave and successful George Pierce (Colin Farrell).

    As Roman moves from one world to another, writer/director Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler) rails nicely against the systemic inequalities of our justice system, with Washington’s seemingly effortless brilliance bringing the nuance needed to make Roman’s moral waverings feel authentic.

    They do, and the film has a nice groove going until Gilroy needs to find himself and Roman a way out of what they’ve boxed themselves into. Suddenly scenes are feeling padded and resolutions a bit tidy, and you’re waiting for the dreaded grand courtroom speech that’s destined to torpedo all these good intentions.

    Thankfully, Gilroy’s instincts are better than that, leaving Roman J. Israel, Esq. with his integrity still intact, just a little dented.

    Grade: A-

    The Man Who Invented Christmas

    “Invented” might be an exaggeration, but Charles Dickens certainly gave the Christmas spirit a boost. Published less than a week before Christmas in 1843, his A Christmas Carol sold out in days, igniting an instant spike in charitable giving.

    As the well-meaning but unremarkable The Man Who Invented Christmas points out, the soon-to-be holiday classic arrived under a looming publishing deadline, at a time when Dickens badly needed a hit.

    Director Bharat Nalluri (Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day) and screenwriter Susan Coyne (in her feature debut) adapt Les Stanford’s book with a mix of fantasy and biography, never making the commitment to either that might have elevated the film beyond merely pleasant holiday distraction.

    As Dickens (Dan Stevens) searches for inspiration, it arrives in the form of Mr. Scrooge (Christopher Plummer). Their interactions, though often charming, only touch on the personal demons Dickens was exorcising through his tale of mercy and goodwill, and the film is too eager to trade darker edges for sustained wholesomeness.

    The peeks we do get into Dickens’s life are worthy, the period setting effectively detailed, and the whimsy entirely likable. Though certainly no classic, file this one under “satisfactory.”
    Grade: B-

    Novitiate

     

    When Cathleen Harris (Margaret Qualley) is seven years old, her mother, out of a sense of duty and more than a little boredom, takes her daughter to church. So begins Cathleen’s love affair with God.

    And it is a love affair, as Novitiate seeks to show its audience as it follows Cathleen from that first encounter to her time as a novitiate seeking to become a bride of Christ.

    As our eyes into this world, Qualley is phenomenal as Cathleen. She brings an intensity to the role that is needed to understand the level of commitment to Christ it takes to become a nun.

    Melissa Leo as the Reverend Mother brings a different level of intensity, one that not only explains her devotion to Christ, but her faith in the perfection of the Church as Vatican II seeks to alter the world to which she’s given her entire life.

    There are moments when the film sinks into melodrama, and some scenes feel unnecessary to the story, but it’s a captivating glimpse into a world few of us witness.

     

    Grade: B-

    I Remember You

    “Children just don’t disappear in Iceland.”

    This line, slyly delivered shortly into co-writer/director Óskar Thór Axelsson’s film I Remember You, let’s you know that you are not really watching the movie you think you are. Indeed, the Icelandic thriller weaves two separate stories together using this missing child as the thread.

    I Remember You offers plenty of fine performances. Though the lead, Freyr (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson) behaves in ways no psychiatrist would (having his ex-wife point that out does little to remedy the problem), Jóhannesson’s caring but distrusting turn gives the film a center of gravity.

    In the tandem tale, three fixer-uppers (Anna Gunndís Guðmundsdóttir, Thor Kristjansson and Ágústa Eva Erlendsdóttir) offer tender and believable performances, and the ghost story itself sits best with them on their secluded island.

    There’s also an effectively foreboding score and the endlessly imposing if beautiful Icelandic backdrop. The biggest issue is that Axelsson, working with Ottó Geir Borg to adapt Yrsa Sigurðardóttir’s novel, can’t bring the most intriguing threads to the surface and tie them together.

    It’s a movie that refuses to stay with you. The final image is provocative, but even that won’t help you remember I Remember You.
    Grade: B-

    Also opening in Columbus:
    Explosion (PG-13)

    Reviews with help from George Wolf and Rachel Willis.

    Read more from Hope at MADDWOLF, and listen to her podcasts FRIGHT CLUB and THE SCREENING ROOM.

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    Hope Madden
    Hope Maddenhttps://columbusunderground.com
    Hope Madden is a freelance contributor on Columbus Underground who covers the independent film scene, writes film reviews and previews film events.
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