Sunday, March 4, 2018

And the best picture is . . . .

The Academy Awards for 2017 are upon us.  When they started nominating ten or more movies for Best Picture, I lost interest because I hadn't seen many or most of them.

It was too bad a winnowing process, with too many pictures vying for the top prize.  But I have seen Three Billboards in Missouri recently, a picture nominated for the Oscar, and I was stunned. 

It was wryly funny at first, but then it got real and horrifying, as the horrifying under-pining of the story would suggest.  (A raped and burned to death teenage girl, whose mother had cavalierly, unknowingly, invited her to walk to her destination instead of using the family car.)  There wasn't a sound in the theatre for the last hour as everyone watched, engrossed in the unfolding story as to the gruesome, oh-so-human consequences of each woman's choice.

And the ending is ambiguous, so it can finish (does anything ever finish, except school terms and life?) anyway a rapt, involved viewer thinks it should.  What a tightly constructed story, with excellent writing coupled with superior acting, and I think it should win the big prize.

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