Review: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
"Raped While Dying." "And Still No Arrests." "How Come, Chief Willoughby?" These are the words on the three billboards that stand outside Ebbing, Missouri, words that unsurprisingly send the townspeople into quite the tailspin in writer-director Martin McDonagh's characteristically wickedly funny but more warmhearted and compassionate new film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
The billboards have been rented out by one Mildred Hayes, a volcano of rage and vulnerability brought to scorching life by Frances McDormand. It's been seven months since Mildred's teenage daughter, Angela, was found dead, having been set on fire after being sexually assaulted, and the local police appear to have lost the urgency to solve the case. Perhaps they're "too busy torturing black folks" to solve her daughter's murder, she charges, an accusation which does not sit well with Sheriff Willoughby (Woody Harrelson at his most endearingly folksy), who insists they don't have any evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, to track down the culprit and who believes the billboards to be an unfair attack on his character.
The whole of the town agrees - Willoughby is beloved and he's dying of cancer to boot, a fact of which Mildred was well aware when she threw down the gauntlet. "Everyone is with you about Angela," Father Montgomery (Nick Searcy) says, "nobody is with you about this." The priest won't be the last person to try and fail to change Mildred's mind. She is resolved to see this through despite the verbally and physically abusive reaction of her ex-husband (John Hawkes), who is now involved with a 19-year-old, and the frustration of her son (Lucas Hedges), who just wants to move on with his life.
One of the remarkable things about McDonagh's take on small-town America is the strong sense of community that underlines the very public stand-off. Mildred may butt heads with Willoughby, his hotheaded deputy Dixon (Sam Rockwell) and other folks during the day, but at night they can all still gather at the local watering hole to share a few beers and trade relatively playful insults. More remarkably, when Willoughby coughs blood onto Mildred's face during a heated argument in the police station, one realises in the moment that follows that these are two friends who do care for one another and are caught up in an extreme situation where neither one is wholly right nor wholly wrong.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is an unpredictable film, its narrative frequently steering itself into unexpected corners, resolute and fearless in wading neck-high into morally complex waters, quick to condemn yet also open to forgiveness. It's part modern-day Western revenge drama, part Shakespearean tragedy, part commentary on gender and racial divides. McDonagh's corrosive vulgarity remains very much intact as does his often objectionable on paper but funny in execution humour, but Three Billboards in Ebbing, Missouri sees a new depth of emotional resonance in his work. The film is a stirring and provocative morality tale that finds McDonagh working in a higher register, aided by Ben Davis' unshowy cinematography, Carter Burwell's piquant but melancholy score, a magnificent supporting cast, and McDormand's powerhouse portrayal.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Directed by: Martin McDonagh
Written by: Martin McDonagh
Starring: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Caleb Landry Jones, Kerry Condon, Abbie Cornish, Lucas Hedges, Zeljko Ivanek, Peter Dinklage, John Hawkes, Samara Weaving, Clarke Peters, Nick Searcy
