In an Oscar season that hasn’t been so much a run of disappointing movies as much as has been movies that just didn’t whet the appetite, Martin McDonagh’s (Seven Psychopaths, In Bruges) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri has a chance to finish in my Top 10 movies of the Year. In contrast, I really don’t think I would have had even had a chance since I began writing this blog in 2010. While I really enjoyed its dark theme, its complex characters, and even, to an extent, its quirkiness, this movie was close to perfect. It seems to be a lock for a Best Picture nomination, which shows just how down of a year 2017 is for movies.
I’m a huge fan of Woody Harrelson (Triple 9, Rampart). What a career. The guy can do comedy, drama, fantasy. He is really good at playing a bad guy, especially a bad cop. Unfortunately, he tends to play an evil character much more frequently later in his career than he does a good guy. So it feels rewarding when he plays a character with morals and conscience and is not hindered by some tragic flaw that seems to doom him in many of his movies. In Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Harrelson plays Bill Willoughby, the sheriff of said Ebbing, Missouri. He is a good sheriff who does more good than he does bad, though it does seem that his officers who work for him get away with more than you would expect a typical cop to be able to get away with. For me, that was the central flaw of the movie. Many of these characters make poor decisions, often with deplorable ramifications. Yet, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of consequences for any of them. For me, if you are going to make a movie believable, you need to make all of it believable. You can’t pick and choose. This movie is about unresolved anger. It is about seeking revenge. It is about hopelessness. Honestly, those are the makings of a quality movie. But when these driving forces force some of these characters to act out on these emotions, they seemingly can get away with whatever you want. Does it kill the movie? No. But it certainly doesn’t help.
Willoughby is the central figure around which the movie revolves around. He’s not the central figure, but he is the reason for the three billboards. Frances McDormand (Fargo, North Country) is the movie’s lead. She plays Mildred Hayes, the mother of a daughter who was raped while she was being killed months before the movie started. Distraught that there have not been any real leads, let alone any arrests, the desperate mother is awoken with an idea when she is driving down an abandoned road in her hometown. There are three torn to pieces billboards, each maybe 50+ yards apart from each other. They are so old and unkempt that it is impossible to decipher what was ever originally on them. She decides to rent out the three billboards for a year from the town’s advertising agency where Red (Caleb Landry Jones – Get Out, American Made), who, basically, makes up a monthly price for the three billboards on a road that nobody goes down unless they are lost. But Mildred doesn’t care about that. She has a plan.
That plan includes going out to the three billboards, painting each of them red, and then in big block letters, writing “RAPED WHILE DYING” on the first. “AND STILL NO ARRESTS” on the second. “HOW COME, CHIEF WILLOUGHBY?” on the third. The intent is to try attention to the crime that has since gone dormant. But who is going to see the billboards on a road that nobody ever travels on? The local news crew who will then broadcast that to everybody in that and adjacent communities is who. And, in doing that, Mildred is accomplishing what she set out to do…shed light back on a case that has seemingly been forgotten about. She even is interviewed on a television broadcast where she explains her reasons for putting up the bulletin boards. She wants the Ebbing Police Department to do their jobs instead of using their force against innocent minorities.
But not everybody is too keen on the attention being drawn to what could be perceived as an ineffective police department. The most outspoken of these individuals is Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell – The Way Way Back, Moon), a racist officer on Willoughby’s force who, like just so many of the other characters in this film, has no repercussions for his actions. I won’t include all of what goes done without any consequences other than to say that Officer Dixon came seemingly do whatever he wants with his nightstick, and nobody will do anything about it. Willoughby seems to be a respected chief, but he isn’t as decisive as you might like your leader to be. He doesn’t discipline his crew, and his cancer is well-known. Everyone knows he won’t be around for long. And Mildred’s signaling Willoughby out by name has his entire staff up in arms about it. Willoughby himself seems to have the most sympathy for what Mildred is going through. He’s not taking her approach as an attack on him as the rest of the department. He has a loving wife (Abbie Cornish – Stop-Loss, Limitless) has two daughters of his own. He understands her frustration, but he reminds her that he can’t just invent evidence that isn’t there and that they’ve done everything that he and his team can at the moment and that he believes that, over time, new evidence will emerge and they will catch the person responsible.
And not everyone in Mildred’s camp is in favor of what she is doing either. Her son Robbie (Lucas Hedges – Manchester by the Sea, Lady Bird) is still suffering from the appalling death of his sister. His mother’s bringing it up reinforces this trauma. Unfortunately, this character is going through one of the side stories that gets lost in the shuffle. This movie is really ambitious, but it becomes clear at some point during the shooting that McDonagh realized his bread and butter came when he got McDormand, Harrelson, and Rockwell to sign on and saw what he had to work with involving this talent. Another subplot that gets lost in the film is that of Mildred’s abusive ex-husband Charlie (John Hawkes – Winter’s Bone, The Sessions) and his much younger girlfriend, the air-headed Penelope (Samara Weaving – Mayhem, Mystery Road). Charlie lets Mildred know he holds her solely responsible for Angela’s death, noting that Mildred refused to let their daughter move in with him when she had asked.
It is not the feel-good movie of the year. While it’s not as lighthearted as parts of a movie like Fargo, there will be comparisons on several levels. There is enough of that quirkiness that I didn’t mind all that much but, at the same time, felt like it didn’t fit in. The more important comparison will be to McDormand, who won the Oscar for Best Actress for that film. She’s a shoo-in to be nominated for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing as well and is likely the front-runner. But there will be other Oscar nominations as well. Harrelson and Rockwell each could nab a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. If Rockwell does so, it will be the first of his long career.
Not everyone will enjoy Three Billboards Outside Ebbing. It will be an uncomfortable watch for some, and there will be others who are perfectly comfortable with the subject matter who just won’t enjoy it. I didn’t love it, but in a year where there hasn’t been much that I’ve loved, at least this movie will be one that I remember.
Plot 9/10
Character Development 9/10
Character Chemistry 8/10
Acting 9/10
Screenplay 8/10
Directing 8/10
Cinematography 9/10
Sound 8/10
Hook and Reel 8/10
Universal Relevance 8/10
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