Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri
Comedy drama. With Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell. Director: Martin McDonagh. 16LPV. Months after her daughter’s rape and brutal murder still hasn’t been solved, Mildred Hayes (McDormand) decides to fight back and her first move is to place three large billboards outside town that criticise the local police chief, Willoughby (Harrelson).
The situation quickly escalates as the locals start taking sides. Willoughby has cancer and many people feel Mildred’s billboards are insensitive. Then his biggest supporter, police officer Dixon (Rockwell), starts a bitter feud with Mildred.
Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri is a tragicomic study of rural life. It shows the pettiness that sometimes leads to massive conflict in small towns, but the pain and loss the characters experience are still deep, real and universal.
Like writer-director McDonagh’s other films, In Bruges (2008) and Seven Psychopaths (2012), Three Billboards switches between scenes that make you laugh out loud and ones that make you sob, but this is his most accessible film to date and fully deserves its seven Oscar nominations, including best picture. Oscar winners McDormand and Rockwell and nominee Harrelson are also excellent.
Though not for everyone, this is one of the best films of the year.