THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

Directing: B+
Acting: A-
Writing: B
Cinematography: B
Editing: A-

There's a lot to love in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Sometimes, however, a movie is really good, yet not quite as great as great as the critical consensus might have you believe. My response to this film was indeed generally very positive, but still a bit more tempered than some who heap praise upon it. I'm not sure how many people quite see its subtle, perhaps even minor, element of tone deafness.

It's easy to go back and forth on this, and the cynic in me is tempted to say writer-director Martin McDonagh -- who gave us two superior films in both In Bruges (2008) and Seven Psychopaths (2012) -- is being deliberate about that. Observed with a minimum of thoughtfulness, this is a movie that could entertain both the so-called liberal "snowflakes" and those who would call them that. The thing is, those previous films were characterized by comic violence and drawing attention to the nature of storytelling itself. Three Billboards attempts to take a point of view rooted in a realism of the American south, and I'm not sure the British McDonagh knows quite enough about that to pull off the many layers attempted here. How does this play to audiences of people who actually live in Missouri, I wonder? That's a compelling question regardless of political leanings.

I'm just not sure the timing is quite right for yet another movie featuring cultural racists and casual misogynists who turn out deep down to have hearts of gold (spoiler alert!), even if it takes a traumatic experience to ignite a change of heart. In a weird, somewhat backward way, some of the characters in this story are the result of too much effort to make them nuanced and multi-dimensional. There are moments when it feels inauthentic, especially when a black woman who is the subject of a key subplot gets strangely little actual screen time, in favor of all the white principal characters.

So, okay: those are the complaints. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is imperfect in precisely disappointing ways. But imperfect is hardly the same as unworthy, and this movie is still absolutely worth the time, for both its riveting storytelling -- in spite of the aforementioned flaws -- and in particular its excellent performances. Frances McDormand's badass turn as Mildred, the mother of the slain young woman whose murder remains frustratingly unsolved many months later, is easily worthy of an Oscar nod. And the fact that this year has offered a great many great female lead performances, which actually somewhat diminishes McDormand's chances, is a good problem to have.

Woody Harrelson is Chief Willoughby, the man called out -- perhaps unfairly -- by the billboards Mildren has paid for just outside of town. Sam Rockwell is saddled with the most problematic character, Dixon, a local cop with a history of, to put it euphemistically, bias against people of color. Rockwell, long well deserving of the respect he's gained as a character actor, pulls off an impressive feat by making a character so vile ultimately sympathetic. The question remains as to whether he deserves to be, but Rockwell gives Dixon a unique set of layers.

The cast is rounded out by the likes of John Hawkes as Mildred's ex-husband; Lucas Hedges as her son; Abbie Cornish as Willoughby's wife; and Peter Dinklage as a local guy with a crush on Mildred. There is certainly no shortage of talent in this cast -- although, to be honest, it would be nice for there to be more substantive parts for women than just that of the lead character, a dynamic still far too common.

And, to be sure, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri is not for anyone easily triggered by the use of epithets, be they in reference to women, black people, gay people, or little people. This film features such language to a somewhat surprising degree for a mainstream film these days, the intent seeming to be a realistic representation of the ignorance among typical small-town Southern Americans -- particularly straight, white ones. To his credit, McDonagh at least never uses any of these words as punch lines, and only as a reflection of ignorant biases.

The story moves along in this context, and is so well paced, you barely have a chance to think about such nuances. I fear I'm making it sound like Three Billboards is not quite as good as I actually experienced it to be -- I just feel it's important to acknowledge these points. This is a small town affected by a broader culture that informs how Mildred deals with her specific situation -- which is the unsolved crime of a daughter raped and murdered less than a year before.

There is also a great deal of very effectively disseminated humor in this story, impressive in its integration into such a heavy scenario. Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell both give uniquely tragicomic deliveries, and I laughed a lot, even if a lot of it was in uncomfortable circumstances. This is a very specific kind of comic relief, where you feel like these characters are making very bad decisions, and then the humor lets out some of the tension -- even when bad decisions, guaranteed to have somber consequences, are being carried out.

There is nothing simple about this movie. Some of its complications are unnecessary and avoidable; arguably more of them are what make it on the whole better than its shortcomings might otherwise  suggest. This is a film that's not quite as good as it could be, but remains far better than most.

One of the great unsolved mysteries: why Mildred always wears this pair of coveralls.

Overall: B+

LAST FLAG FLYING

Directing: B+
Acting: A-
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

Here is a movie I would not normally respond to, and to be honest, I have mixed feelings about how well I did respond to it. It works quite well as a movie for someone with zero background and nearly zero knowledge of military culture and protocol; I can't help but wonder how actual veterans I know would respond to it. How authentic is it, really, I wonder? I literally have no idea. It seems important to admit that up front. This is the kind of detail that can make or break a movie for people who have gone through the same kinds of things these guys went through.

That said, Last Flag Flying -- with its annoyingly tongue-twisty title -- may be a pretty male-centric movie, of which there is still no shortage, but when it comes to male relationships, and particularly friendship and loyalty among straight men, it really stands out. I'm a gay man who exists worlds apart from any character in this movie, and still I responded to it. This movie made me laugh, I cried just a little bit, it moved me.

The key there is Richard Linklater, the brilliant director and writer behind such films as Boyhood and Before Midnight. His name alone is what, like me, might attract viewers to a story like this when it could have been easily overlooked as a film by most other directors. Linklater has a knack for getting to the heart of characters; he specializes in dialogue, and doesn't distract with pointless action or snappy editing.

And the three main characters in Last Flag Flying are multi-dimensional, fully formed -- I may not know how authentic all the military content is, but these three certainly come across as authentic people. Steve Carell continues his work as an underrated actor of subtle precision as Larry "Doc" Shepherd, the Vietnam veteran whose son has just died in Iraq just two days before the story begins.

Doc finds two Vietnam War-era buddies not seen in decades, guys who could not be more different from him or from each other, but who were all bonded by the experience of serving in the war. Sal Nealon (Bryan Cranston, only slightly over-the-top in obnoxiousness) is an alcoholic owner of a run-down bar; Reverend Richard Mueller (Lawrence Fishburne, suitably dignified most of the time) is now sober and working as the pastor of a church. Doc, recently widowed only months before the death of his son, is quiet and somber in his grief. His way to deal with it is to look up Sal and Richard and go to them to ask that they come with him to pick up his son's body.

Linklater infuses a surprising amount of humor into this otherwise downer of a story, which happens organically and is a welcome element. All three of these men come across as flawed people simply doing the best with what they have to work with.

The setting is 2003, giving Linklater a chance to draw plenty of comparisons between the pointlessness and wastefulness of both the Vietnam and the Iraq Wars. This plays pretty well and never feels too forced; however, he does rely a little too heavily on the supposed newfangled-ness of things like The Internet and mobile phones. 2003 may have been fourteen years ago, but these things had been pretty common for several years even then. It could be argued, perhaps, that the perceptions of much older men at the time changes things -- but one would think even someone their age in 2003 would not have been that surprised that they could be tracked down using the Internet.

So: Last Flag Flying lacks the seamlessness of some of Richard Linklater's other more recent output, but it's far from fatally flawed. This is a movie really worth a look, and I'm saying this as someone who typically has zero interest in a movie like this. The actors truly sell their characters, and make for a couple of hours with them very well spent.

This movie is way more fun than this photo makes it look, I swear!

Overall: B+

MY FRIEND DAHMER

Directing: B+
Acting: A-
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

My Friend Dahmer is a peculiar film indeed, the kind of thing that can make you wonder what it’s target audience is. People with truly morbid curiosity, I guess? Presumably that includes me; I was interested in seeing it, after all. That said, the Regal Meridian Cinema downtown in Seattle is the single theatre in the area it’s playing in, and even there it’s not exactly selling out. This is not a story with wide appeal. Perhaps the world has had its fill of cannibal mass murderers.

Then again, maybe not. Still, I’m not even sure what there is about this movie to recommend to others, unless increasingly unsettling awkwardness counts. Certainly the performances are excellent: 21-year-old Ross Lynch plays an 18-year-old Jeffrey Dahmer, and the resemblance is uncanny. His stiff social awkwardness among peers is maybe slightly overdone, but is always thoroughly effective. And Anne Heche is inspired casting as Joyce, Jeffrey’s erratically crazy mother. How’s that for “on brand”? Jeffrey's father (Dallas Roberts) finds it increasingly difficult to control her, and also frets about Jeffrey's own apparent lack of friends.

The story is based on a 2012 graphic novel of the same name by Derf Backderf, who tells of befriending Dahmer during their senior year of high school. In the film, he’s played by Alex Wolff, although director Marc Meyers does not maintain his single point of view. Dahmer starts “spazzing out,” seemingly as a joke, and Derf and a few of his friends think it’s funny. They go so far as to create the “Dahmer Fan Club,” encouraging him to disrupt classes and the school overall in this way. It’s increasingly unclear to what extent Dahmer is in on the joke. 

Meanwhile, Dahmer himself slowly reveals himself to be a little unnerving, potentially dangerous. We never see him commit any of his heinous crimes here, only living the year of his life that leads up to it. He has an excessive fascination with roadkill -- one of the first things seen onscreen in the film -- and dissolving animal carcasses in acid. At one point we see him taking a dog into the woods, and that sight alone is effectively frightening. 

It’s widely known that Dahmer was gay, and it’s strange how that is only barely suggested in this movie. But maybe it was something Derf, as the original teller of this story, never quite realized. Or maybe Meyers doesn’t want to come across as over-focusing on it. The shifting nature of identity politics is one thing; the straightforward truth of a matter is another.

Either way, My Friend Dahmer is a uniquely creepy movie, increasingly so as it goes along with its subject slowly awakening to his own monstrous impulses. It is thus particularly memorable and effective, if you’re into that sort of thing.

One of these things is not like the other.

Overall: B+

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

Directing: B-
Acting: B
Writing: C+
Cinematography: B
Editing: C+
Special Effects: C

After seeing Kenneth Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express, I'm rather eager to see Sidney Lumet's 1974 original. I've spent years insisting that movies should be judged on their own merits, but that's just the thing here: Branagh's apparent "update" only barely stands on its own merits. The original, at least, still has a sort of fame -- more than forty years on, it still has name recognition, anyway. And trust me on this one: no one's going to be talking about Kenneth Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express in 2060.

For now, the current version has its moments, and that's about all it's got. Branagh stars as the famous Inspector Hercule (pronounced "Er-Cule," he notes several times) Poirot, complete with a mustache stretched so far across his face it could only called majestic. And I hate mustaches! Poirot's gets its own bit of humor, though, complete with a plastic covering vaguely in the same shape of it which he sleeps in. Anyway, Branagh puts himself center stage, hamming it up onscreen seemingly more than the rest of the A-list ensemble cast combined. As with the story itself, it gets a mite tedious after a while.

This most problematic element of the story is clear from the very beginning, with an extended introductory sequence not even set on the fabled train out of Istanbul. We see Poirot address a crowd of adversarial religions accusing either a priest, a rabbi or an imam of theft. Branagh is introducing us to the cleverness of this central character, here thanks to the well-timed placement of his cane into the Wailing Wall. The thing is, he takes a tad too long with it. I just found myself thinking, When the hell are we going to get on the train?

Poirot finds himself with a last-minute need to get on the train, and once he finally arrives at the station, here we are introduced to all of the first-class passengers who will later become suspects to the murder of a nasty businessman played by Johnny Depp -- who, let's face it, is phoning it in. Many of the other characters are much more fun: Judy Dench as a surly elderly princess; Josh Gad as the businessman's assistant; Willem Dafoe as a suspicious German; Penélope Cruz as a semi-comically pious woman; Michelle Pfeiffer as serial widow Caroline Hubbard continues her recent streak of being great in not-so-great movies. There's more, but in continuing the list we get right back to the aforementioned tedium. As in: some of these passengers are delightfully shady characters; others are fundamentally forgettable. Daisy Ridley is also in this movie, apparently.

I did get a good laugh a few times at this movie, which is peppered with some well-placed gags and quips. There are too many characters, however, and not enough time spent with any given one of them -- all the while far too much attention is focused on Poirot himself. This guy and his Belgian accent could have benefited from taking it down a notch.

There is an inherent appeal in the mystery of a whodunit on a train careening through Eastern Europe. It's too bad so much of the scenery is transparently done via green screen, rendering what should be majestic landscapes rather inert and static. There isn't near enough depth to the visuals in this film as there should be. And then there are the odd staging choices: sitting all the suspects along a table just inside the opening of a train tunnel, spaced out like they're staging The Last Supper. Meanwhile, Branagh as Poirot is literally sharing half the screen with the huge stream train behind him as he works out who the culprit is. Okay, we get it! There's a train!

I do wonder how many people unfamiliar with the story are able to work out who the murderer is. I suppose it's to the credit of original novelist Agatha Christie that I was genuinely surprised by the revelation at the end. Until that point, though, Poirot leads a great many conversations that overstay their welcome. That runs counter to the intrigue we're supposed to be gripped by all the while. This is one train ride that could have used a jump in pacing -- rather than literally stalling on a CGI railroad bridge in the mountains.

Kenneth Branagh's majestic mustache leads a train to nowhere.

Overall: C+

LOVING VINCENT

Directing: B-
Acting: B
Writing: C+
Cinematography: B-
Editing: B
Animation: B+

At first glance, the concept for Loving Vincent is intriguing indeed: as we are told in the first frame of the film, every frame (and thus including the one we are looking at) was hand painted, by a team of over 100 artists. The subsequent story they tell, such as it is, is entirely told in the visual style of Vincent van Gogh -- who is also the subject of the story. That makes this movie truly unlike any other, so there's that.

Van Gogh is seen a fair amount, but talked about much more. Co-directors and co-writers Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman use Citizen Cane as a vague inspiration in story structure, with the character Armand Roulin (Douglas Booth, getting the most screen time) talking to many citizens of the town where van Gogh died, a year after his somewhat mysterious death. Armand's dad, a postal carrier, was good friends with van Gogh, and has tasked Armand with delivering one of his final letters to a man in the town.

Each of these town characters are inspired by one or another famous figure from a van Gogh painting, brought to life. The way this was shot seems largely similar to the rotoscoping style of Richard Linklater's 2001 masterpiece Waking Life. Except here, instead of tracing over the actual footage, this time the actors shot their scenes, which were then projected onto canvases, over which literal oil paintings were painted.

The end result could have been spectacular in the vein of Waking Life, but the way the story was structured just didn't work for me. I'll fully concede that this is largely a matter of taste, and possibly even of education. Clearly anyone with a deep knowledge of van Gogh's work and life will find a far greater richness and reward to Loving Vincent (the phrasing of which, by the way, refers not to the act of loving him or his work, but to the way he signed his letters). I am not one of those people.

Furthermore, the animated brush strokes, so painstakingly rendered to mimic those of van Gogh himself, are often a distraction. Often a single frame of this movie is truly beautiful, but the way it moves when animated is often jarringly unnatural, with seemingly odd choices of colors, particularly when it comes to human skin tones. Perhaps that's just another element of typical van Gogh art?

But then there are the flashback scenes, which come with literally every conversation Armand has with the people in this town, and are always in black and white. This counter-productively mutes, if not outright nullifies, the effect of creating actual oil paintings for every frame of this movie. Who wants to look at van Gogh-style paintings in black and white? And it felt like nearly half the film's run time is dedicated to these flashback scenes.

It's a little fun, at least, to recognize the actors being depicted. Chris O'Dowd, Helen McCrory, Aidan Turner, Saoirse Ronan and more were literally costumed for the scenes they shot, and the artists render paintings of them rather than more directly mimicking the van Gogh paintings on which they are based. More fun, perhaps, than sensible: I also found this a bit of a distraction.

Aside from the visual inventiveness onscreen, the focus in the story is pretty much exclusively on conversations, and contemplation of the circumstances of van Gogh's death -- did he really commit suicide or was he shot? Unfortunately, I never found these conversations all that interesting. Again, it may be completely different for audiences with intimate knowledge of Vincent van Gogh. I can't imagine those audiences are very great in number though.

Armand wonders how to make this movie more exciting.

Overall: B-

Advance: LADY BIRD

Directing: A-
Acting: A-
Writing: A
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

Greta Gerwig has a singularly open-hearted style, always a delight to see onscreen, and with Lady Bird we get to see how it translates when she’s behind the camera. This is a tale with a unique sincerity, completely lacking in judgment – for its characters, or even for the religion they follow. Even for an atheist such as myself, with plenty of contempt for organized religion of all sorts, it’s actually refreshing to see a movie in which going to a Catholic school actually happens to be a positive part of a person’s upbringing.

Lady Bird still has a pretty progressive sensibility, mind you – one of the supporting characters turns out to be gay, and in Gerwig’s telling of the story, she acknowledges how the circumstantial context, both geographical and religious, complicates that. It’s a comparatively brief moment, but unmistakable.

That’s how this movie overall could be characterized, actually. At 93 minutes, there is never a wasted moment. The editing can be slightly jarring, at times: the scene cuts quickly away, barely before the viewer has a chance to register a subtle punch line. There is some great humor here, the kind that builds, revealing itself with greater depth the more yout think about it. I found myself more than once giggling at something, then laughing harder upon immediate reflection.

The story takes place in Sacramento, California – “The Midwest of California,” as put by the title character (played by Saoirse Ronan, truly fantastic) – which also happens to be where Gerwig is from. Many of us can relate to the sense of affection someone finds they later have for the city they grew up resenting. Christine, who is seventeen and wants everyone to call her “Lady Bird,” is growing up in a lower-middle-class home, with an overworked and overbearing mother (Laurie Metcalf, never better) and an unemployed, depressed father (Tracy Letts).

At its core, sure, Lady Bird is just another coming-of-age story, mixed in with a young woman’s fraught relationship with a very caring but deeply imperfect mother. It could be argued that these are tropes, hardly new. But given that pretty much all stories ever told are recycled in one way or another, the key is in the telling. And that’s very much the case here, with Greta Gerwig proving that it doesn’t really matter what the story is, anything can be compelling if you present it in a fresh way, with a keen eye on the particulars of given characters.

The people in Lady Bird are the kind you can easily imagine completely ignoring in real life if you passed them on the street, but in this movie, every single one of them is interesting. Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson’s semi-deluded fearlessness offers an even mix of youthful naiveté and brash confidence which, even if you were nothing like that as a teenager, is somehow easily relatable. For this we can largely credit Saoirse Ronan’s assured performance.

Christine dreams of getting into an out-of-state college with a mixture of scholarships and financial aid barely procured with a slightly spotty academic record but surprisingly high SAT scores. She thinks she’s desperate to get out of Sacramento, but it’s increasingly clear that, years down the line, she’ll probably come back. She alienates and reconciles with a very sweet best friend (Beanie Felstein, also lovely). This is a young woman who thinks she knows what she wants, only to find her aspirations clarified by fairly typical mistakes.

What makes Lady Bird stand apart with this is its wholly realized characters, which makes your heart ache for them in hardship, and celebrate in their joys. Even the supporting characters are fun to hang out with – Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea) as a would-be boyfriend; Lois Smith as a nun with a sense of humor; Stephen Henderson as a priest and drama school teacher. One of the many triumphs of this film is that all the main characters – and nearly all the supporting ones – are likable, and in individual ways. You just have a good time hanging out with all these people.

Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf share a repressed moment.

Overall: A-

Opens tomorrow at the Egyptian Theatre.

GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN

Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B

When a movie comes out purporting to tell the "untold story," particularly behind something like a beloved series of children's books, it's natural to expect something equal parts touching and charming. When it's done well, that's the way it tends to go.

Goodbye Christopher Robin takes a different approach. For that reason, perhaps a warning is in order: this movie is sadder than you might expect. It tells the story of how Winne the Pooh came to be, and the real little boy on which Christopher Robin was based, but then it focuses heavily on how his being used as a prop to publicize the books put a strain on his relationship with his parents, and particularly his relationship with his father -- author Alan Milne.

The characters are very well cast. Domhall Gleeson plays Alan Milne, giving his PTSD from World War I a severely controlled intensity, which clearly has an effect on his ability to be very affectionate with his son. Margot Robbie plays Milne's wife, Daphne, and it's hard to decide whether she's worthy of sympathy or just self-involved and neglectful. Kelly Macdonald is always a welcome face, here as Olive, the nanny young Christopher Robin becomes closer to than his own parents. Will Tilston is stupendous as the young Christopher Robin.

A lot is made of real names vs made-up names. Christopher Robin is the boy's legal name, but his parents call him Billy Moon. When Alan Milne decides to write books based on their adventures in the woods, he uses "Christopher Robin" as a way to separate the real kid from the fictional one -- even though, ironically, Christopher Robin is his real name. Meanwhile, Billy calls his dad "Blue," like his friends do. This is not a family with normal terms of endearment.

Milne wants to write a treatise against war, but has a bit of writer's block, even after moving out to the country in an effort to eliminate distractions. Billy asks him to write a book for him, and ultimately, he does: the Winnie the Pooh series. Maybe half this movie focuses on that particular journey. And then the focus shifts to Billy becoming recognized as the "real Christopher Robin" by a world rapt by the books. Billy's parents make the misguided decision to bring him on press tours, and present time with him as the prize in toy store sweepstakes.

As you might imagine, Billy grows up resentful. Eventually we see Billy as an 18-year-old, and Alex Lawther makes the most of his screen time as the older Billy, which makes up maybe a quarter of the story. He gets made fun of an picked on by kids in school and grows up miserable.

We are meant to expect that Billy has died in action in World War II. This is not a spoiler; the film starts with Alan and Daphne receiving notice that their son is missing and presumed dead. This ultimately becomes part of a cheap, emotionally manipulative twist offered by the story in the end. Even with it being surprisingly sad overall -- though never oppressively so -- this shift in gears is plainly disappointing, in terms of satisfying storytelling.

Until then, however, Goodbye Christopher Robin is still plenty engaging, and often quite lovely to look at, with lush cinematography and an overall pleasant mood, until relationships are strained. This is an odd little movie in that it's neither as bright and sunny as you might expect, nor is it as much of a bummer as you fear it will be in the end. This gives sort of even things out, albeit with some tonal inconsistency. It's a compelling story, at least, its slightly gnawing flaws notwithstanding. It helps that all the actors are, in their way, effectively comforting.

Christopher Robin and his dad have different intentions for one Pooh Bear.

Overall: B

THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER

Directing: B+
Acting: A-
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B

Yorgos Lanthimos's follow-up to 2015's truly fantastic -- and weird and disturbing -- The Lobster, leans much more into the uniquely horrifying. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is similarly odd in tone, but less like an alternate reality, even though all the characters have this largely static, deadpan delivery.

This is more like a Sophie's Choice for the 21st century, repackaged as vengeance rather than spite. The thing is, young Martin (a brilliantly unsettling Barry Keoghan) thinks of it not as vengeance, but as justice. It's easy to endure the tensions of this movie and wonder what the point of it was. What masochist would put themselves through a story like this? Well, I did. And it does bring to light how thin the line between vengeance and justice can really be.

Still, it can be difficult to decide how to feel about The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Martin has been hanging out with surgeon Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell), who we eventually learn was the surgeon working on Martin's father when he died on the operating table. We never get any explanation of how Martin has this power -- apparently it's beside the point -- but when Steven's youngest child, Bob (Sunny Suljic), suddenly loses all feeling in his legs, Martin takes responsibility. Not only that, but he tells Steven that since he killed a member of his family, he must kill a member of his own family as well. If he does not, then one by one, his two children, as well as his wife Anna (Nicole Kidman), will in turn suffer the same paralysis, then be incapable of eating, and then as soon as their eyes start bleeding, that will mean they are hours from death. The only way this can be prevented is by killing one of them outright -- hence, of course, the film's title.

And that's just the premise. The script is the weakest element here, but to its credit, over and over it moves beyond where other movies would go with its mysteries. This is not a movie where what's going on is kept secret from its characters until the very end. Surprisingly early on, Anna, Bob and teenage Kim (Raffey Cassidy) are all fully aware of what's going on. Like The Lobster, this film has some dark humor, although it doesn't indulge in it nearly as much. Ther's a darkly funny scene in which the siblings sadistically needle each other about which of them will be chosen to be killed.

It's difficult to describe this movie without making it seem just pointlessly weird. It has a deeply unsettling tone to it, camera shots slowly pulling out of or tightening in to images of beautiful composition. This happens whether it's near a large tree in a yard at sunset or in the corridors of a hospital. And here we have a middle-aged, married couple, grappling with the choice between choosing death for just one of them, or certain death for all of them. All except for Steven, who is assured he must live with the consequences either way.

The performances, the often oddly deadpan delivery notwithstanding, are solid all around. Nicole Kidman can convey an astonishing amount with just a sustained shot of her face with no dialogue. And Alicia Silverstone appears briefly as Martin's mother, quite literally unrecognizable: I saw her name in the credits and was taken aback: Wait, what? Where was Alicia Silverstone? She was in Martin's house, trying to seduce Steven by awkwardly sucking on his fingers.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer exists in a world much closer to our actual reality than did The Lobster, but still consistently feels vaguely otherworldly, even when characters are not getting ailments that local medical professionals are incapable of explaining. Yorgos Lanthimos has a knack for injecting just a dash of the supernatural, giving his world a sense of subtle yet disturbing wonder. He is a truly singular writer and director.

Perhaps he's singular to an excessively stark degree, for some. This is a film that will stick with you, but depending on who you are and what kind of tolerance you have for the specific, genuine psychological horrors it has to offer, it could stick with you in unwanted ways. And the end is slightly disappointing, having left me thinking, Um . . . okay? This movie left me incapable of being any more precise than that.

Martin wants to play the worst game ever.

Overall: B

SUBURBICON

Directing: C
Acting: B+
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B
Editing: C

Here is a movie with great pedigree -- this isn't the first rodeo for anyone involved. George Clooney long ago proved himself a more than capable director; Joel and Ethan Coen have been writing solid scripts for ages. Bring them all together as a team, and how could Suburbicon not be great? Well, hey -- who is this fourth member of the script writing team, Grant Heslov? Maybe he was the one who ruined it! Well, except he wrote three of Clooney's previous films.

Who knows what derailed Suburbicon? Something did. This is a film that kind of has its heart in the right place, within the context of intended satire, except the end result is a muddled mess, most of which is almost shockingly dull.

Although I would actively recommend avoiding this film, I will still avoid straightforward spoilers. What I will say is that the movie you wind up seeing is something far different from what the trailers suggest it will be. It also makes liberal use of a subplot involving a black family moving into an otherwise all-white 1950s community, which the trailer hardly even hints at. That may be because this subplot somehow manages to be frustratingly vague and heavy-handed at the same time. Not every movie has to have something to say, but this movie clearly feels it does, and yet it's impossible to figure out exactly what it's saying.

The central characters make up a single family, headed by the usually wonderful -- or at least capable -- actors Matt Damon and Julianne Moore. Moore even plays both the parts of the mother and the mother's sister. No one ever says whether they're supposed to be identical twins. One of the is blonde and the other is brunette.

The plot structure is itself worthy of the Coen Brothers' body of work, with some delightfully dark turns. The problem is how long it takes to get there, the story plodding along with a score Alexandre Desplat so weirdly old-school mellow, given the subject matter, it's liable to make you drowsy.

In the meantime, the community's vitriolic response to the back family moving in serves as a subplot never directly connected to the main story, but occasionally providing distraction and cover for the evidently unrelated events happening in the house where the Lodges reside. There's a break-in; the family is tied up to chairs; consequences result in a cloud of suspicious circumstances. Their young son, Nicky (Noah Jupe, who is pretty great), befriends the black boy his age who lives next door.

Suburbicon pointedly focuses on this black family while also giving them short shrift. The woman playing the mother (Karimah Westbrook) gets a few lines, as we see her being treated with severe passive-aggression at the local grocery store. I couldn't even tell you who plays her husband, because the man literally gets zero lines in the film. Did he have any lines in the shooting script, I wonder? I hope so; then at least he got paid more than he would as a Featured Extra, which is all he is in the final cut. And if this family is so clearly supposed to be vital to the story, presenting them in this way is both pointless and counter-productive. The young black boy, played by Tony Espinosa, gets a few lines, at least.

All this is to say, Suburbicon operates on a series of intended connections that miss their marks completely. It's possible the trailer was cut in such a misleading way because not even the marketers themselves could figure out how to say what this movie is really about. People die; the couple at the center of the main story become heavily involved; most of the characters turn out to be different people from who you thought them to be at the beginning. By the time that becomes clear, however, you've moved far past caring.

Julianne Moore and Matt Damon look dispassionately back at a bored audience.

Overall: C+

MARSHALL

Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B

I have to tell you, I watched Marshall and I thought about how many movies like this were greenlit while Obama was still in office. What potential is there for the Trump Era to usher in more movies that inch closer to "white nationalist" -- or more overtly white supremacist -- perspectives? Honestly I think that given the nature of Hollywood, and the Bush years as a reference, more films about resistance are likely. Then again, who knows? Are these paranoid thoughts? Just consider this nation's history. To think things can't get bad again is a little naive.

Marshall focuses on an early, key case in the life of Thurgood Marshall (played by Chadwick Boseman), the man who would go on to become the first African American justice on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967. Some three decades earlier, he was the sole lawyer working for the NAACP, and he comes to a Connecticut town to represent Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown), a black man falsely accused of rape.

It's too bad such an early, landmark case has to be framed in such a way, which makes things uncomfortable in unintended ways, particularly in our current cultural climate of unprecedented numbers of women speaking out about sexual assault. We currently live in an era, after all, when years of associated silence equals complicity on the part of sexual predators, be they Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby. There's a lot of intersectionality to unpack there, but that's not the purpose of this review.

The flip side is that a whole lot of cultural context was flipped around eighty years ago, a time when some Civil War veterans were still living. A wealthy white woman (Kate Hudson) has consensual sex with a black chauffeur, then panics at the thought of a great many things far more frightening to someone in her position than they would be now: not just getting caught by her husband, but the chance of getting pregnant, and how she will then be treated by her community. Never mind how black people are treated by the community to begin with, of course.

So it's complicated, and honestly, director Reginald Hudlin oversimplifies it a bit, with writers Jacob and Michael Kaskoff packing their script with subtle yet unmistakable contrivances. There's a slightly odd tone to this movie, particularly in the beginning -- it's as though the movie is a little too proud of itself for being profound. Except Thurgood Marshall was himself far more profound than this film could ever be. It's a tone that will likely work fine for most viewers, but it didn't quite work for me.

But then the details of the case at hand come to the forefront, and we get lots of courtroom scenes, including a great supporting performance by James Cromwell as Judge Foster. Foster is the one who declares local lawyer Sam Friedman (Josh Gad), who thought he was just offering a quick favor to get Marshall on the case, will be lead council for the defense. Friedman is himself a Jewish man, and there are a few references to the rise of the Third Reich. This gives Friedman a means of empathy as a member of another oppressed minority, an element of his and Thurgood's relationship -- particularly when Friedman gets assaulted just for being associated with Thurgood -- that gets laid on a little thick. So, some things in this movie are less subtle than others.

Still, the court scenes, complete with the prosecuting attorney played by Dan Stevens (Matthew from Downton Abbey), are the tasty meat of Thurgood, and are what made it worth seeing. The approaches of both sides reveal a lot about the "arc of the moral universe," as it's called, in the history of America, if you're paying attention.

That said, given the historical significance of the man, this film could have done better justice -- so to speak -- to the memory of Thurgood Marshall. Here there are solid performances and a worthy story, but nothing likely to be remembered for long. Would that the movie about him could have the same impact the man himself had. Imperfections notwithstanding, this is a story that deserves attention.

Josh Gad, Chadwich Boseman, and Sterling K. Brown, bending toward justice.

Overall: B