People are complicated creatures. We’re all capable of
cruelty and kindness, anger and compassion. Everyone’s part good, everyone’s
part shit. It’s this internal dichotomy that drives Martin McDonagh’s
pitch-black comedy/drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing,
Missouri, and it’s why his characters are more complex and authentic than
those we often find on screen. They’re brutally flawed, but devastatingly
human. It doesn’t hurt that the phenomenal cast all give career best
performances, or at least damn close.
Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) lives in, you guessed it,
Ebbing, Missouri. She’s divorced, a single mother, a domestic abuse survivor,
and as tough as they come. She’s also grieving the loss of her teenage
daughter, who was raped, set on fire, and murdered. The police, led by Sheriff
Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), still haven’t caught anyone seven months
later, and to remind them, Mildred commissions the titular billboards to keep
them on task. In sequence, they read, “Raped while dying,” “And still no
arrests,” “How come, Chief Willoughby?” This chess move sets off a firestorm in
their rural hamlet and stirs up more than she ever intended.
Despite the hook, Three Billboards’
primary concern is the people. This isn’t a mystery to unravel. We don’t follow
Mildred as she pieces together clues the cops missed to solve the case and
deliver justice. McDonagh’s script and sure-handed direction lights the fuse
and watches the town scramble.
McDormand burns with a righteous fire throughout, and she
deserves every stich of acclaim she’s received—in a fantastic career, this
still stands out as a fearless highlight. Mildred is a crusader on a quest for
justice and fighting the good fight. She stands up to bullies of all stripes
and remains steadfast and uncompromising.
But her passion also blinds her—or at least numbs her—to the
damage she causes. She forces her exacerbated, unwilling son (Lucas Hedges) to
relive the trauma he’s also still working through; her best friend/boss gets
arrested out of retaliation; she faces threats, scorn, and assault; and the
community tears itself apart. But she’s like a stoic frontier gunslinger, unable
and unwilling to back down once she heads down this path.
Part of what makes Three Billboards so
frustrating, and so frustratingly real, is that while we back Mildred, we also
know there’s nothing Willoughby can do. This isn’t a case of neglect,
indifference, or incompetence. No one missed evidence or swept vital
information under the rug. They collected every clue they could find; they
simply didn’t lead anywhere. Willoughby’s fighting his own health battles, and we
see how much his inability to deliver closure for Mildred pains him. Harrelson
is snarky and charming, impatient and frustrated, but also deeply empathetic
and relatable.
The greatest feat McDonagh pulls off is creating characters
that aren’t easy but are still compelling. You can’t simply love them or hate
them, or immediately pigeonhole them as one thing or another. This goes from
Mildred and Willoughby, and straight on down the line. The town views James
(Peter Dinklage) as the local dwarf who wants to get in Mildred’s pants, but in
a scant handful of scenes, he proves much more. Mildred’s abusive ex, Charlie
(John Hawkes), is capable of a wider range. Even his 19-year-old girlfriend
(Samara Weaving), mostly played for laughs, has a moment that reveals unexpected
depth. Caleb Landry Jones’ Red alternates between being spineless and weasley
and unexpectedly brave and kind. Despite the traditional movie industry age
gap, Abbie Cornish adds well-wrought pathos to Anne, Willoughby’s wife—likely
the most one-note character, she still feels real.
No one is just what they appear at first glance, and no
character embodies that fact more than Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell). A violent,
dim-witted, hot-headed, racist cop, he comes perilously close to being a redneck
cartoon. But as despicable as he is, and Dixon’s plenty despicable, it’s
impossible to completely write off. He ends up the messiest, most intricate,
problematic character in the movie, save Mildred.
Maybe we don’t like these people; maybe we can’t bring
ourselves to root for them, at least not all the time. But goddamn if they’re
not all fascinating to behold. Even Dixon’s mother (Sandy Martin), a
controlling, unrepentant bigot, isn’t without redemptive features—not
redemption, not by a long shot, I’m not sure anyone here is worthy of, earns,
or even wants redemption. But again, there’s also more than initially meets the
eye. She loves her son best she knows how, which makes her much more
interesting to watch than a character we can dismiss outright.
Without exception, these are people who’ve been through the
ringer. In one scene in particular, when Charlie confronts Mildred about the
billboards, he flips over a table and chokes her against a wall. A situation
their son intervenes in by putting a large kitchen knife to his father’s
throat. A casual air permeates this moment of domestic violence, like it’s all
routine. This isn’t the first such spat. In the time it takes father and son to
nonchalantly right the fallen table, all three brush it off and move on, though
at the same time it leaves an indelible mark.
Three Billboards is a collection of
balancing acts. McDonagh strikes and maintains a delicate interaction between
dark, uncomfortable comedy and eviscerating, biting drama. He somehow makes a
story about a mother out to avenge her daughter who was raped, incinerated, and
killed, really damn funny. I’m not entirely sure how—I watched it happen and
still have no clue how he pulls it off. He finds humor in unlikely place, but
never sacrifices gravity for levity, or laughs for emotion. Though very
different, the only apt comparison I can come up with is the Coen Brothers.
It’s so easy to lose control in these situations—look no further than George
Clooney’s dreadful Coens-aping Suburbicon—when it works, it’s
that much more impressive.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
isn’t for everyone—one couple walked out of my screening during a particularly
heated bout of racist banter, and I get it, it’s rough. For all the humor,
there’s not a single moment that doesn’t carry the significant weight of of the
subject. It’s not always easy or pleasant, and it’s not a movie to passively
observe. McDonagh confronts the audience and gets right in our faces. He asks
us to sympathize with terrible people and to occasionally dislike our heroes.
It’s messy, ugly, and raw at the same time it’s authentic, earnest, and moving.
[Grade: A]
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