#mcdonagh

In Bruges, created by Martin McDonna, 2008

Calvary (2014) 

Jack held Sally's hand walking through the trees, keeping her from skipping off on her own like a balloon slipping out of his grasp. How many girls had he saved? A few dozen? That was just the first time down. He'd gone back to Rapture to find more of them to save, but some parts were just inaccessible to him. He knew he should be happy with the ones he was able to save, but the conscience he had yet no one knew why prevented him from forgetting about them.

The rest had found good homes, there was no shortage of socialites and people with good hearts eager to take in children who had been "Experimented on in a Nazi Base off the coast of South America," or so the story went that Jack and Tenenbaum had given the FBI and was shortly thereafter leaked to the press. But a few insisted on staying with him. Sally, Mascha, Anna, Camille, and Mary all lived with him; their neighbor Elaine McDonagh had a girl of her own, Sophie. Sally originally was taken in by a kind Irish couple who were unable to conceive but Sally wanted to leave because their voices reminded her of "The Bad Man." Jack didn't have to ask which one. The couple had taken in three other girls with Sally, saying it was their Catholic duty, so the loss wasn't so great.

She trusted Jack though, as did the others. They didn't want a different parent. Or parents, as the case was, since Brigid had moved in with them, working downtown in a genetics lab that was all too pleased to have someone of her talent. She would sometimes ask the girls if they remembered what it was like. The thought of what she did to them would forever haunt her, but the girls had forgiven her, even if they didn't fully understand what was done. The next, and much harder step was forgiving herself.

Jack was in his own head when he felt Sally stop skipping along and start pulling. Jack tightened his grip instinctually but her skinny little fingers slipped out of his grasp. "Sally!" he called after her as she dashed towards a fountain.

With his Sportsboost and other Adam enhancements it wasn't hard to catch up to her, so Jack decided to let her stretch her legs and use up some of her energy in the run. Much to his embarrasment though, Sally did not go to the fountain, but to hug a woman standing in front of it, humming to herself. Jack recognised the song, La Vie En Rose. Sally sang it often despite not knowing a word of French herself.

The woman seemed startled by Sally, the girl's weed-like growth putting her head just above the woman's hip. She had dark hair which was cut in a modern fashion, falling to her shoulders and curling at the ends, which complemented and pale skin. She had a slender waist and a narrow frame, standing perhaps a head shorter than Jack.

"Sally! I'm so sorry, Ma'am, she's--"

"Sally...?" The woman spoke only a little louder than a whisper of disbelief. There was something in her voice which made her sound almost familiar with the girl.

"I'm so sorry about her, I don't know why she did that." He repeated, finally grabbing her attention as she stroked Sally's light blonde hair. Jack felt his breath taken away as she looked at him. She had no makeup on but still her skin seemed to shine, plush lips parted in surprise as she saw him, positioned below a small, pointed nose. What really ensnared him were her wide, bright blue eyes set like living sapphires above her prominent cheekbones.

Jack suddenly felt very small in front of her, remembering how his blond hair was a mess and how he'd forgotten to shave for the past few days, not to mention he'd worn the same shirt for two days and the same pants for three. Color rose to his own angular cheeks as he blinked his blue green eyes, the only movement in his petrified body.

"Jack?" She asked him a little louder than she'd said Sally's name.

It took him a long moment for his voice to come back and his tongue to turn back from numb cotton.

"You know--" He stopped and cleared his throat so his voice wasn't a dry wheeze. "You know me?"

Now it was her turn to blush. "No, I mean, not yet. I'm sorry. " Her hand was still petting Sally's hair as she clung to the woman's side.

"Maybe we should start over," Jack smiled and offered her his hand. "I'm Jack." She sighed and smiled as she gently moved Sally away took his hand.

"I know." She shook his hand, and he felt something cold and metallic against his palm. As she pulled her hand back, he saw a thimble over a short pinky finger.

Frances McDormand has a real chance to steal the Oscar from Soairse Ronan and Sally Hawkins. 

I really did not hate Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. I want to put that out front. I liked this film and I really think that as a play, this would work so, so well. It follows through on some really good plot points and the characters are never artificial, always genuine. But I have some major reservations. McDormand and Harrelson are both really killer in this (though as a side note, I’m not sure why Harrelson’s wife is randomly British..)

Altogether, this film wants to be woke. But it’s fake-woke. There’s a wonderful review of film that I’m sort of lifting from here and I implore you to read it. It’s the NYTimes article by Wesley Morris in case the link breaks. I really agree with Morris in the sense that I feel like Three Billboards wants to be woke and it wants to say something meaningful about average-Joe America, but at the end of the day, the fireworks of Hollywood kind of takeover and the script serves its own purpose: to be clever.

McDonagh is a fantastic writer and no one doubts that. If he steals this Oscar from Greta Gerwig, I’m gonna be super pissed but at least I’ll have some understanding as to why The Academy thinks he deserves it. He knows how to write compelling stories. The characters are interesting, the dialogue is sharp, and the story is never lacking in its addiction to push the drama to the forefront.

But again, at the end of the day, the film is lacking in a very important way. It could be something really compelling and something really meaningful in political discourses. It opts, instead, to just be the former.

From: The Cripple of Inishmaan, by Martin McDonagh

Genre: Comedy

Topic: Letter, loss

Character: Female