Just a smalltown girl . . .
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (15)
Starring: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell
Director: Martin McDonagh
The Plot: In the small town of Ebbing, Missouri it's been nine months since teenager Angela Hayes was raped and murdered. Her mother Mildred (McDormand), furious that the case hasn't been solved, rents three billboards outside the town and puts up messages condemning the police and its Chief, William Willoughby (Harrelson). This divides the town and fires up the police, but when dim-witted Deputy Dixon (Rockwell) gets involved he and Mildred start down a path of increasing violence . . .
Review: Writer/director Martin McDonagh is not known for shying away from laughs, violence or vulgarity. His previous films In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths have given us extremely funny displays of swearing and violence wrapped around dark cores; Three Billboards might be his funniest work to date but also his darkest, dealing with some very bleak story lines and themes. It's also one that I can see being very divisive, even amongst fans of this style of film. I firmly enjoyed it, as despite some flaws, the razor-sharp dialogue, dark humour and strong performances make this a real winner in my book.
At the time of writing, Three Billboards is riding quite a wave: it's just won four Golden Globes, including Best Picture (Drama) and Best Actress (Drama) for Frances McDormand, is nominated for multiple BAFTAs, and is almost certainly going to feature heavily at the Oscars as well. There's also some criticism present though, particularly in how the the racial aspect of the story is presented, or specifically the lack of it. I'll get into that later, but I thought it was worth pointing out how even at the highest critical level of the industry the reaction to the film is divided.
The story, as I mentioned, is a grim one. You could describe it as a crime drama, although "reaction-to-crime" drama might be more suitable as the story begins long after the tragic rape and murder of Mildred's daughter. The film also deals with such bright and sunny things like terminal illness, suicide and various kinds of prejudice, all wrapped up in a slice of life look at smalltown America. It needs humour, really, to make this level of bleakness palatable, and fortunately it has it by the bucketful. It's black humour, as black as it could possibly be, and Three Billboards is a hilarious film for it, but it's measured, in my view. The profanity of the characters and the comical nature of some of their actions is extremely funny, but it's not constant, allowing the serious moments the, well, seriousness they need. Just how funny the film is will be a matter of personal taste, of course, but I thought the balance was struck just right.
Frances McDormand needs no introduction, nor do I need to remind you of what a fantastic actress she is, but she dominates the film from start to finish. Mildred is a coverall-and-bandanna clad whirlwind of anger, grief and resentment, giver of zero fucks and one of the funniest but also most sympathetic characters brought to the screen recently. One moment she's barging her way into the police station, angrily addressing Dixon with "Hey fuckhead!", the next she's quietly breaking down as she tends to the flowers she's placed next to her billboards, which grimly are also the scene of her daughter's murder. She's a woman who's lost her daughter, whose husband has left her for a younger woman, who's constantly at odds with her son, and is clearly unwilling to take any more shit from the world. McDormand is wonderful throughout, whether she's fire-bombing a police station, kicking a teenage girl in the crotch or verbally abusing a reporter on live TV, and her performance is worth the price of admission alone.
Supporting her, both with impressive performances, are Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell. The characters they play couldn't be more different: Chief Willoughby is not a perfect person by any means, shown as he is to have some of the same small-town prejudices affecting the other characters, but he's clearly sympathetic to Mildred's plight as a father himself. Deputy Dixon, on the other hand, is clearly not: an alcoholic mother's boy and stereotypically simple-minded, he objects strongly to the billboards and the bad impression they create for the police, and it's his clashes with Mildred that lead to the escalating violent acts as the story progresses. Both Willoughby and Dixon go on very different journeys: in one of the most bleak and effective moments of the film, Willoughby commits suicide during the second act, rather than face his final months of terminal cancer. Dixon manages to get himself fired from the force and badly burnt, but also is given a moment to show that there may be something of a decent man underneath his prejudices. Harrelson and Rockwell both do well, Rockwell especially.
A brief mention to the other supporting players - Peter Dinklage is fantastic in a cameo role as James, an admirer of Mildred ("I think a midget wants to get in my pants!" she says after returning home from a bar) who gives her an alibi when needed and just wants to take her out. He only appears in a few scenes but he's terrific, particularly when he emotionally breaks down during their ruined dinner. Lucas Hedges (who was excellent in last year's Manchester by the Sea) plays Mildred's teenage son Robbie, and while he also only has a few scenes, he does get what's possibly the best line of the film: in a flashback sequence, which incidentally is the only time we get to see Angela alive, Robbie's arguing with them both and calls Angela a cunt. "There'll be no more cunts in this house" Mildred says, chastising him, to which he retorts "Why, you moving out?"
For me personally, the biggest criticism I have of the film is that I'm not sure exactly what it's trying to say - if it is trying to say anything at all. While there are strong themes present, such as the effects of loss, the consequences of acting in anger, and the concept of there being more to people than what meets the eye, there isn't a distinct, overall message to be found and the film suffers for it a bit. We don't get a conclusion to Angela's case (despite a curve-ball towards the end when Dixon appears to catch the culprit), and we don't get a clear indicator of what the long-term effects are going to have on these characters. I mentioned earlier that there's criticism of how the racial aspect of the story is handled: there are several references to the police force of the town being racist to blacks, and specific references to Dixon having previously been caught beating a black suspect ("How's the nigger-torturing business?" Mildred asks him at one point). It was notable how little this impacted how the story plays out for Dixon, and again how you interpret this may vary, but given that the character is shown to be be beginning to grow by the end, I did find this a bit jarring.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Despite lacking a clear message, this is a darkly funny, bleak, violent tale of a woman pushed to her limits by anger and grief that I really enjoyed. Worth watching just for Frances McDormand's performance alone, this is a film that I'm sure will prove to be divisive but, if you're a fan of this kind of dark humour, is essential to watch.
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