Martin McDonagh strikes gold here, not only the writer but, also directs the film about a tale of grief, racism and the power of words set in small town America tied together by three billboards. Can you guess where it’s set? Yes, the clue is in the title – Ebbing, Missouri.

Central to Three Billboards success is a blistering performance by Frances McDormand supported by an incredible cast including; Sam Rockwell, Peter Dinklage, Clarke Peters but it is Woody Harrelson as Chief Willoughby who shines brightest. His character provides the support and balances the visceral, raw rage of Frances McDormand’s, as the grieving mother of the murdered teenage daughter. She, who is clinging to the vain hope that using billboards will ignite the police force into searching for her daughter’s killer and, he, a man who knows he has no hope of beating pancreatic cancer.

The film starts with Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand), still raw with grief after the brutal rape and murder of her teenage daughter, seven months ago, driving past three dilapidated billboards on a road no one drives down since the new freeway opened.  Out of sheer desperation and frustration at the local police chief’s seeming inaction in finding her daughter’s murderer takes out three billboards to shame Chief of police and his force into doing something. Three Billboards is by the writer of In Bruges. If you’ve never seen it then briefly its a  black comedy of two hitmen hiding out in that much sought after location of Bruges after carrying out a hit on a Catholic priest that goes tragically goes wrong.

Much like his earlier film, McDonagh uses very black humour to highlight police brutality against black people, bigotry and lack of diversity whilst never losing sight of the central story of a mother who is fighting not just for justice for her daughter but trying to fight the shame and guilt she feels about her last words to her daughter before she was murdered. The power of words on the Billboards, the language used in the movie and the way in which it’s expressed means this film resonates on so many levels – your words are what’s left long after you’ve departed.

Not only is Martin McDonagh a talented writer but his direction is as refreshingly direct as his language. Imagery and symbolism is important to a writer and McDonagh understands this. The abiding image of Mildred running with a paltry fire extinguisher to try and put out the fires engulfing seven foot high billboards is so powerful as the symbol for her fight to get answers on her daughter’s case.

Now call me a prude but the one niggle I have, is the swearing. I can abide all swear words except the c word which does appear a few times in the film. Not as many times as I thought – I’ve seen the film twice but enough for me to remember it.  Without that word this film is a 5 star but, the inclusion means I’ve taken a star away.

This film does live up to the hype and in a sea of biopics and big budget movies, here is a film that tells a story and touches on universal truths without overplaying the cliches. It is full of dark gallows humour and is 2 hours long. Actually, for the film length, I am going to award it a half star. So this film gets 4.5 stars.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri opens across cinemas in the UK on Friday 12 January.

From the start, it’s not immediately obvious what The Silent Child is about. It opens with a woman riding a bike down country lanes to a slow and mysterious piece of music, which immediately creates a sense of unease. Is that an indication of what’s to come? (In short, no.)

It transpires the cyclist, Jo (Rachel Shenton, who also wrote the film), is travelling to the family home of three-year-old Libby (Maisie Sly), who is deaf. Jo is there to assess Libby’s needs and begin teaching her sign language ahead of her starting school. While normally quite inanimate and stoic because of her inability to communicate, Libby’s personality changes dramatically as she gets to grips with fingerspelling, and at the same time she starts to form a close bond with Jo.

As she does, however, her mum (Rachel Fielding) starts growing concerned. She wants to wean Libby off sign language and get her used to lip-reading, but with no obvious reason for doing so. Maybe she feels her position is being threatened, maybe she doesn’t like the stigma of being seen fingerspelling. Whatever the reason, her increasing hostility to accept that her daughter needs help makes her highly resistant to Jo and her

The film does well to portray the isolation of deafness and how a disability in a family can cause friction – which will resonate to anyone with any experience of this – but unfortunately its ending lets it down. While it’s the most realistic conclusion to events, the tone of the film hints that something more unexpected is coming, and it’s somewhat disappointing when it doesn’t.

Also, there are other plot elements introduced – Libby’s real parentage, tension in the family caused by Jo’s presence – that would be worth exploring but are ultimately ignored, which makes you wonder why they were introduced to begin with.

On a technical level, The Silent Child is very well photographed by Ali Farahani, whose crisp visuals help to convey the realism of the film as well as drawing us in. At the same time, a convicted and anchoring performance from Shenton adds much integrity and earnestness to the film. It’s obvious, from her performance and her script, that this is subject matter very important to her, and she’s giving it her all.

Against the film, however, is Amir Konjani’s score, which feels out of place. The Silent Child is in essence a quiet true-to-life drama with a dark undertone, but it has the accompanying music of a thriller. It’s easy to get the wrong idea of what to think and expect from the film from its score.

The film ends with the startling statistic that more than three-quarters of deaf children have no support at school, and it’s admirable of the film to try and bring attention to a worthwhile cause. The Silent Child has heart and is thought-provoking, which is enough to transcend its imperfections and make a viewing more than worthwhile.

If there’s one thing I love, it’s psychological thrillers. What I love even more is a psychological thriller with a sci-fi or monster movie edge to it. It’s for this reason that the earlier works of John Carpenter and David Cronenberg work so well for me. It’s also because of this that Paul Holbrook’s Cell started off very strong with me. It is a perfect recreation of these great director’s styles – from the Cronenbergian atmosphere of unease from an unknown source, to a score reminiscent of Carpenter.

The story is not a complex one, it’s just very weird. A cowardly Allied Forces soldier is captured by the Nazi’s and thrown into a cell with a naked woman. The two of them have nothing but fear and suspicion for each other – but must soon find a way to trust each other when the experiments begin. What follows can only be described as Saw meets The Thing.

From the get go, I loved the cinematography of Cell. The set designs and lighting are utilised very well. This makes the whole film feel claustrophobic. The unease felt in every frame is on par with an ‘80’s Cronenberg or an early 2000’s Neil Marshall film. You are on edge all the way to the big reveal at the end. There is no denying how effective it was, and it had me wanting to see more. With Cell being only nine minutes long, the hook straight away is of great importance. The score has its moments of blaring out, namely during credits and title cards – but it’s mostly subtle and very well blended into the scenes.

https://vimeo.com/215807215

I also thought that Cell was well acted. The performers give a good show. They convey both fear and disbelief at everything that transpires. Many moments in this film are uncomfortable, although this is mostly due to the costumes and make-up, I think. The basic image of a naked woman locked-up in a small cell with a man with a gun is always going to be an unsettling one. But it’s never played to the point of disturbing the viewer, due to the performances and the colours scheme.

But that’s also where Cell’s shortcoming fall. After seeing the film, I struggled to remember it. It honestly left no lasting impact on me after viewing it. It’s pretty tragic, because the first few seconds grabbed me so well. I struggled to find out what caused this lack of impact. I do feel that part of it is that, outside of some creative imagery and the gory climax, nothing shocked me. I was never disturbed or upset by the film. And considering that it was a parody of the horrors of mankind, that is a bit of a problem. It lacked teeth that it sorely needed to imbed itself in my memory.

I think what didn’t help was the voices used. There’s a voice over an intercom and a character in the film’s final minute who both have really silly voices. This was used to take away the humanity from these characters – I assume this was to strike a kind of uncanny valley effect; making the voices different, but not so much, to hit the point of being creepy. But no. It was just silly to listen to. This wouldn’t have bothered me if there was this camp tone or underlying humour to Cell, but there isn’t. It just jarred too much that it completely took me out of the film whenever these characters talked.

Cell works in its own way. It is a dark parody of mankind’s cruelty and delivers some nice themes of hope and mercy beneath all the violence. It just doesn’t have enough weight to be memorable. It’s a case of ticking the boxes, which it does very well. But I can’t deny that I have seen better psychological thrillers – some even shorter than this. I do recommend Cell for all it achieves, and I do hope that it gets recognised as a fun thriller. If not a memorable one.

In the midst of The Photographer’s opening crowd shot, the titular lensman (Javan Hirst) and central character of the short, emerges, snapping away. Following which, we see him in a flat, looking at a selection of his photos he has stuck to the wall, and it’s not too long before we start to realise something less innocent is going on.

Only a minute into the film and he has said the line: “I go out looking, but in the end I don’t choose my subjects. They choose me.” With that he bumps into a woman (Sophia DiMartino), and then watches her intently as she walks away. That’s how his subjects ‘choose’ him.

All dialogue is incidental, with the photographer addressing the audience by use of voice over, in which he relays the deep and unconventional personal beliefs and ideology he lives by. What this does is rob the character of much mystery. If the filmmakers had approached the character cold and slowly allowed us to gain a better idea of who he is through simple observation, it would have been a more interesting approach to the character rather than have him essentially tell us who he is up front.

As he begins to pursue his new ‘subject’ out in the street, to her place of work, and while she meets with friends, he speaks of his strict ‘rules’ for his practice. One of them is to maintain a distance and have no contact with the people he is following, which he does here. All the photos he takes of his new subject are from a distance and without her knowing.

However, when he believes he has uncovered evidence that she may be in danger, he feels prepared to break this rule and warn her. It’s not adequately explained why he suddenly wants to help this woman – whether he’s developed feelings for her, if he wants the opportunity to be the hero, or if he doesn’t step in it will bring his pursuit to an end. Whatever the reason, he knows he has to step in.

The Photographer is not bad, there’s just not much in it that’s unique or original. It’s clearly inspired by One Hour Photo, also about someone isolated from society forming an attachment to a stranger from the sanctity of still photographs, while bearing a thematic resemblance to Christopher Nolan’s Following and taking style cues from Sherlock.

The finale of the film is effective, if a little obvious and not entirely credible, and the final line seems directed at the audience, framing the whole film as a warning about the dangers of invading people’s privacies. It’s a prescient point, given it is now far easier to do than ever before, and while this does not redeem the film, it’s an effective note to end on.

It’s a typical Saturday morning in suburbia…except that one set of home owners have decided to bring their spark back by having sex in their driveway. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite go the way they’d hoped.

The Driving Seat is a beautiful and realistic portrayal of love. As our two lovers try to re-ignite the more risqué elements of their relationship we see it go wrong both physically and mentally. The everyday arguments of married people, the risk of being seen, and the uncomfortable space in which they’ve chosen to act all play a part as an exciting situation becomes uncomfortable, plagued by everyday jealousies and talk of past lovers.

Nothing hugely ‘exciting’ by Hollywood standards happens, and there’s no major scandals revealed. These are just everyday issues, lovingly portrayed in a beautiful and bright film. If you don’t see aspects of your own relationship, or that of your parents, then well…you’ve had a perfect life. Relatable, funny heart warming, I loved this short film.

Jainee Dee and James Lailey both give utterly fantastic performances. Dee portrays trying to hard and middle class fears without verve and Lailey gives 100% the best performance of everyday male jealousies I’ve seen in a low budget film. Phil Lowe has done an excellent job directing, and I’ll be excited to see their next work.

At only 9 minutes long it’s well worth a quick watch for any one as it’s fun, funny and shows older British couples at their finest.

Phil Lowe – ‘I like to use comedy as a vehicle to get audiences to engage with themes that are more substantial than they might have expected; they think they’re watching a comedy, then on their way home find themselves having a serious discussion about what they’ve seen. This film started as a fairly light comic premise – a middle aged couple deciding to have sex in their car – but as I worked on the script, and then rehearsed with the actors, we found that we were exploring something quite fundamental about long term relationships. I hope that audiences will also find it equally funny and thought provoking.’