Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017, Martin McDonagh)

The premise of Three Billboards (etc.) is quite simple: months have passed since a young girl was brutally raped and murdered in Ebbing, Missouri, and the local police force seems to have given up the case. Her mother then hires three billboards outside town to accuse the chief of police of negligence ... Problem is: this chief of police is not an asshole, but a nice guy who did his best to solve the crime and he also happens to suffer from terminal pancreas cancer. When Willoughby commits suicide because of his illness and the unbearable pains he'll have to endure, the inhabitants think he did it because of the three billboards outside town and blame Mildred ...

And all hell breaks loose ...

What kind of movie is this? A black comedy? Or is it a serious drama that is at the same time funny? Whatever it is, it is well-made and tremendously well-acted. Both Frances McDormand and Woody Harrelson are perfectly cast as the two main opponents, the mother and the chief of police, and Sam Rockwell turns in a terrific performance as the redneck sergeant who still lives with his mum. This is a better movie than The Shape of Water, its major rival in the Oscar race for Best Picture, but it's not flawless either.

Writer/director McDonagh skillfully plays with people's expectations, revealing layer after layer of both the movie's plot and characters. The story will most certainly keep you hooked, but some of its contrivances seem a little absurd. Three Billboards is about traumatic experiences people are unable to forget, but most characters seem strangely unaffected by what's happening to them (or to others) in the course of the movie. In Ebbing, Missouri you can burn down an entire police station and even a person who nearly died in the fire won't bear a grudge against you. And like one critic wrote: the conclusion seems to be that it's okay to be a cunt, but not a dick (*1).

Controversy

Ironically the film's script was criticized by some, not because of its improbabilities, but because it seems to condone sergeant Dixon's redneck behavior. Through a series of machinations the character is turned, in the final stages of the movie, from a brute into a more amiable person.  Obviously the intension of the film makers was to illustrate his growth as a person, not to condone his racist ideas (he was clearly presented as an immature person in the first three quarters of the movie), but most of these machinations rely too much on coincidence or sound so far-fetched that the whole idea of redemption and forgiveness is blurred.

⭐⭐⭐

Note:

* (1) Alicia Queen in her on-line review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG3Qh90vszs&feature=youtu.be

Frances McDormand (Mildred Hayes), Woody Harrelson (Willoughby), Sam Rockwell (Dixon), Sandy Martin (Mrs. Dixon), Caleb Landry Jones (Red Welby), Nick Searcy (Father Montgomery), Lucas Hedges (Robbie), John Hawkes (Charlie), Abbie Cornish (Anne Willoughby), Kerry Condon (Pamela), Kathryn Newton (Angela), Amanda Warren (Denise Watson)