Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what movies I’ve seen over the past week. Below, you will find short reviews of those movies along with a star rating. Full length reviews may come at a later date.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Lady Bird

After spending years toiling away in the indie circuit with plenty of recognition of her acting talents, Greta Gerwig steps behind the camera in a fascinating coming of age story that explores the young life a poor Catholic family in Sacramento.

Saoirse Ronan continues to impress as the best young talent of her generation as young Christine who has dubbed herself “Lady Bird” as a way to reclaim her own identity. As her High School career comes to an end, she begins to explore who she is as a person before heading off to college. As she explores rebellion in as passively aggressive a way as possible, she begins to understand who she is, who her mother (Laurie Metcalf) wants her to be, and whether she wants to truly strike out on her own or remain near the only home she’s ever known.

Gerwig’s film is charming, intelligent, humorous, and beautiful. Any kid from the wrong side of the tracks can recognize elements of their own lives in this: longing to be thought of as more than the “poor kid,” wanting to find a way to be better than their parents while still cherishing them, and exploring a world that seems so foreign to them, but also quite exciting. Ronan is fantastic as is Metcalf as her mother who affectionately captures the angry, tired, loving, frustrated madness that is parenting. Tracy Letts is also strong as Christine’s father and Lucas Hedges does solid work as her first boyfriend.

As an aside, it’s surprising to see Stephen Sondheim’s musical Merrily We Roll Along used as a central element to an early portion of the film, one that’s used both as a backdrop and as a thematic representation of the collapse of Christine’s early relationships.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Martin McDonagh did terrific work with In Bruges, but takes a new tack in this down-to-earth mystery. Frances McDormand plays a frustrated mother who rents three billboards on the outskirts of the fictional town of Ebbing, Missouri to bring attention back to the lack of movement on a case involving the rape and murder of her daughter by calling out the dying sheriff (Woody Harrelson) for not doing more.

Infusing his film with delightfully broad, but complex characters, McDonagh has an eye for detail, giving each qualities that are both frustrating and passionate. They breathe with richly realistic elements while digging into their weaknesses and strengths with fascinating detail. McDormand’s plays Mildred with righteous conviction, feeling herself above the law in her grief-fueled anger. The tempered sheriff Harrelson counters her with is brimming with weary determination. Then there’s his racist deputy Dixon given depth by Sam Rockwell who finds a way to make him both repulsive and sympathetic. Throw in Lucas Hedges as Mildred’s embarrassed and depressed son, Caleb Landry Jones as the pseudo-spineless billboard operator, Peter Dinklage as the smitten potential paramour, and John Hawkes as the cheating abusive husband and you have a colorful cast of characters that rival those created by the Coen Brothers in many of their films while doing them one better and infusing them with more realistic and relatable backstories.

The foundation of Three Billboards is a challenging one filled with numerous jabs at small town America that also fills them with loving richness. McDonagh respects and admires these folk while feeling no remorse for exposing their darker natures. It’s a film that explores a challenging subject with the kind of grounded respectfulness that have made the flawed characters of McDonagh’s other work stand out so fondly.

Darkest Hour

Joe Wright’s appreciation of British history is evident in every film he makes and while Christopher Nolan brought new life to the rescue of British soldiers from Dunkirk, Wright explores the behind-the-scenes drama that helped solidify his standing as wartime Prime Minister as well as lead the charge in bringing home those very soldiers at Dunkirk.

Darkest Hour is filled with charged performances, but they would be nothing without the anchor that is Gary Oldman under heavy makeup and padding as the legendary Winston Churchill. Slouched posture, affected speech patterns, and chomped cigars help bring life to Churchill. Oldman has clearly done his research, delving so fully into his performance that there is never a moment where his acting muscles don’t feel authentic and credible. Finding passion and sorrow within the depths of this potential political figure requires only the best talent and Oldman is damned brilliant in the role.

The rest of the cast is solid as well as is the superb creative values put into the film. Every dark corner of the war room, the cramped carriages of the Underground, and the palatial halls of Buckingham Palace are given bountiful detail, a trademark of Wright’s films. Dario Marianelli suffuses it all with his lush score and cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel crafts some marvelous shots, evoking a sense of grandness within a story that has no right to have it. Wright’s films always feel bigger and bolder than one would expect, especially when presenting a dialogue-heavy production. He gives dramatic weight to a film that could have existed almost exclusively on a theater stage, which makes it an interesting companion to his own Anna Karenina, which used theatrical staging as a design motif for a bolder picture.