A WRINKLE IN TIME
months of no movement, Mildred decides to rent three rundown billboards that she can see from her front yard. The message she has plastered on the signs is a question to the local chief of police, William Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), of why there has been no progress made in the case. Instead of immediately being sparked to return to the investigation, the public chastising of the police upsets Willoughby. His second-in-command, Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell), is sent into a rage by the billboards and repeatedly gives into his darker side as a way of getting the signs removed. None of this shakes Hayes because she’s been through one of the greatest ordeals a person can face with the murder of her daughter. Just as “Fargo” embraced the region when it came to culture and history, McDonagh does the same thing with his players. But even when he makes a character like Dixon start out looking to be little more than a stereotypical Southern police officer, there are twists revealed that show there is a lot more depth to the character. — Rick Bentley, Tribune Content Agency
1/2 PG, 109 minutes. Niantic, Mystic Luxury Cinemas, Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. Ava DuVernay’s “A Wrinkle in Time” is a landmark film even before it hits the theaters. The adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s eerie, mystical young adult sci-fi novel from 1962 was budgeted at over $100 million, the largest budget a woman of color has been handed for a film. DuVernay is only the fourth female director to receive that kind of budget for a project, and in tackling the beloved “A Wrinkle in Time,” she has taken an enormous swing. That alone is worthy of recognition. DuVernay marshalled an array of star power to inhabit L’Engle’s tale, with Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling stepping into the roles of the Misses; supernatural, deity-like beings who guide the young Meg (Storm Reid) on her journey through space and time. — Katie Walsh, Tribune Content Agency
ANNIHILATION
R, 120 minutes. Through tonight at Westbrook and Lisbon. Still playing at Waterford. “Annihilation” follows a group of female scientists who set out on what is essentially a suicide mission to a top-secret location known as Area X, where a shimmering energetic border has appeared, cordoning off an amorphous portion of wilderness, changing its landscape. There is no communication in or out, and in three years, no missions have returned. Having tried groups of military men, they’re trying