Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri **** ½ / *****
Directed by: Martin McDonagh.
Written by: Martin McDonagh.
Starring: Frances McDormand (Mildred Hayes), Sam Rockwell (Officer Jason Dixon), Woody Harrelson (Sheriff Bill Willoughby), Peter Dinklage (James), Caleb Landry Jones (Red), Abbie Cornish (Anne Willoughby), Lucas Hedges (Robbie Hayes), Clarke Peters (Abercrombie), Zeljko Ivanek (Deputy), John Hawkes (Charlie), Brendan Sexton III (Crop Haired Man), Nick Searcy (Father Montgomery), Sandy Martin (Mama Dixon), Amanda Warren (Denise Watson), Darrell Britt-Gibson (Jerome).
It is not an easy thing that writer-director Martin McDonagh pulls off in his third, and best, feature film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. This is the year’s most quotable film – full of great one liners, funnier than any comedy you will see this year. It’s also a film that completely and totally breaks your heart, and will have you in tears. It is full of complex characters that at times you will love, and times you may well hate – and which one it is may change more than once during the film. It is, simply put, one of the very best films of the year.
In the film, national treasure Frances McDormand plays Mildred Hayes – the mother of 20 year girl who six months before was raped and murdered, before he body was set on fire. The police still have made no arrests, and don’t really have any leads. So Mildred decides to up the pressure on the police – renting out three never used billboards to make her message heard loud and clear – she isn’t happy with the job the police, led by Sheriff Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) is doing. While you can immediately relate to the righteous anger that Mildred feels – it’s surprising how much you instantly like Willoughby as well. He’s charmingly played by Harrelson, who can give as well as he takes – and goes toe to toe with McDormand and more than holds his own. He’s dying of cancer – and thinks that may win him some sympathy from her. No such luck. There are other major characters – Deputy Dixon (Sam Rockwell) isn’t the sharpest guy on the force, and already has excessive force complaints against him – but he’s extremely loyal to Willoughby and doesn’t like what Mildred is doing to him. The casting supporting these three is the best ensemble of the year – Caleb Landry Jones as the slimy ad salesman in town, Lucas Hedges as Mildred’s surviving child, who wants a normal life, John Hawkes as her ex-husband, screwing a 19 year old and best of all Peter Dinklage, who nurses a crush on Mildred. His role at first doesn’t feel like much – but his last line in the movie is both my favorite in its delivery, and changes your perspective on the film more than a little bit.
McDonagh – who won an Oscar for the very entertaining short Six Shooter, and followed it up with the great debut feature In Bruges (and it follow-up, Seven Psychopaths, not nearly as good, but a hell of a lot of fun) has gone deeper here than in the past. His three leads are deeply flawed, yet sympathetic characters that he makes more complicated as they go. McDormand knows this the best role she has got since Fargo, and rips into it with a vengeance – but doesn’t go the easy route, and make her one note. You start out hating Dixon – but it’s surprising just how much you like him by the end – it may well be Rockwell’s best work ever. And what can be said about Woody Harrelson, except that this is the type of role he does to perfection. The movie offers no easy answers – and the final actions that each of these characters make are not so simple themselves – and complicate our feelings towards them as well.
The film is set on a sprawling canvas of Middle America in a way that we often do not see. It is set in the same area (or at least state) as Netflix’s recent series Ozarks – but captures the characters better, and with less condescension. It’s a messy, poor, dead-end town with not a lot going on – that boredom, and homey small town values, giving way to something darker underneath. These people probably all voted for Trump – yet you like them all.
