A blisteringly dark comedy from writer-director Martin McDonagh (“In Bruges,” “Seven Psychopaths”), “Three
Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” is fueled by the
righteous anger that burns within Frances McDormand’s
incredible lead performance.
McDormand plays Mildred Hayes, a single mother living in
small-town Missouri. We learn that her daughter, Angela, was brutally murdered
seven months prior, and with no leads and no suspects, the police have allowed
the investigation grow cold. As the hope of any resolution dwindles, Mildred
decides to rent three billboards on the outskirts of town, putting up a message
calling out the local law enforcement and shaming them for their inaction.
It doesn’t
take long for people to take notice, and the attention her campaign earns pits
Mildred against the town’s police department, led by the respected Chief
Willoughby (a wonderful Woody Harrelson) and his deputy, the doltish, bigoted
Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell). The billboards don’t sit well with the rest of
the town either, and the situation quickly spirals, eventually having deeper
ramifications on the lives of everyone involved.
Before
writing this review, I had the rare opportunity to see “Three Billboards”
twice. The first time I saw it — back in September at the Toronto International
Film Festival — I was sure I’d seen one of the very best films of the year. And
I still thought it was great the second time around, but something had shifted
slightly. The seams in its storytelling began to show: the overly constructed
screenplay, the way characters are treated merely as props, and the way the
plot hinges on a number of far-too-neat plot contrivances.
“Three
Billboards” tells a story of anger, grief, and regret wrapped up in the timely
issues of racism and police brutality. That McDonagh
intentionally raises those topics while making the decision to sideline any
characters of color makes it all the more frustrating. There are several black
characters throughout the film, all with varying degrees of importance, but no
real significance to the plot. They remain mostly in the background, and to a
one, they’re singularly virtuous, existing only to bear witness to wrongdoing,
or cheer Mildred on in her crusade. It might have helped McDonagh’s
script to extend to them just a fraction of the complexity he gives to the
major characters.
But for the
most part, McDonagh makes sure that no one is
entirely good or evil; the best of them have flaws and worst of them are
allowed moments of redemption. He layers that ambiguity throughout his tale,
challenging his audience by showing us humanity at its best and its worst, and
in both cases asking us to extend some degree of empathy.
That McDonagh isn’t going for complete realism with his tale is
most evident in how much Mildred is able to get away without being arrested
(even considering the fact that she’s a 60ish-year-old white lady). Though the
film remains on Mildred’s side, it does question her methods at times,
particularly as they take a turn for the vigilante. It considers the toll her
quest for vengeance takes on those close to her, including her teenage son
(Lucas Hedges).
The cast is
uniformly excellent, and the film wouldn’t work nearly as well without a trio
of great performances from Harrelson, Rockwell, and McDormand.
Whip-smart and tough as nails, Mildred is a role that showcases everything McDormand excels at, and she locates the emotion and
vulnerability behind all the anger. It’s as strong a role as her Oscar-winning
turn in “Fargo,” more than twenty years ago (though in many ways Mildred feels
like the direct inverse of Marge Gunderson), and the performance will no doubt
be part of any end-of-the-year awards discussion. Rockwell has an even more
difficult task, playing a role that comes perilously close to caricature but
making sure it never tumbles over that line. He’s fantastic.
Brutal,
funny, and sad, “Three Billboards” is a great but flawed movie that functions
best as an exorcism of the deep-seated anger that’s permeated our society.
Everyone is pissed off at someone these days, and as that anger festers, the
fissures in our country grow deeper every day. As a culture, we’re deeply
screwed up, but McDonagh suggests that if we can
accept that and simply try to screw up in the right direction together, things
might someday, eventually be OK. Despite my minor reservations, that alone
might make it the film of the year. See it with someone you can have a long
discussion (or maybe even a heated argument) with afterward.
This article appears in Nov 22-28, 2017.
