Tragedy begets fine film artistry
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” begins where most stories should begin, already in progress. The pivotal event, the tragedy from which the central character can never recover, has already happened, and what we see is the aftermath, the crazy things that take place after the world has already tipped its hand and revealed its madness.
The movie represents a leap forward for writer-director Martin McDonagh. “Three Billboards” is as clever and
imaginative as McDonagh’s “In Bruges” in terms of how it makes characters collide in delightful and unexpected ways. But there’s just something more going on here: an underlying sense of loss and impending loss; an awareness of sorrow and of the importance of human connection.
Extreme behavior pervades “Three Billboards,” so it comes as a surprise to look up and realize that it doesn’t contain a single major character who is entirely or even mostly evil. In fact, in the strangest way imaginable, this is a rather warm movie, something like the Coen Brothers in its zaniness and bone-deep pessimism, but with a heart.
It provides an ideal showcase for Frances McDormand’s intensity and single-mindedness. She plays Mildred, a divorced mother whose daughter, seven months earlier, was raped and then murdered by being set on fire with gasoline. McDormand plays Mildred as if seeing that horror before her eyes at every waking moment.
As the movie begins, she notices three empty billboards outside town and decides to rent them with a message criticizing the local police chief, Willoughby, for inaction. In fact, Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) isn’t a bad guy at all. He’s genuinely trying to solve the case, which is difficult, while coping with a serious health problem.
It’s a wonder how much emotional nuance McDormand can convey behind a mask of seeming implacability. She doesn’t play for sympathy, and she conveys underlying pain without actively playing pain. She has a lovely scene when she lets her guard down and talks to a deer that appears out of nowhere. She also has a beautiful flicker of a moment, when the ailing police chief, in the midst of a fairly contentious conversation, accidentally (and to his own horror) coughs up blood on her. He assures her he didn’t mean to do that, and she says, “I know, baby.”
It’s hard to imagine anyone but McDormand bringing to this role such odd combinations of rage, bitterness, perception, tenderness and probity. She is nicely matched by Harrelson, who brings to the police chief the odd suggestion that knowing the worst of human nature can actually make a person more forbearing, not less.
“Three Billboards” is very much a screenwriter’s movie. Audiences will delight in the dialogue, its virtuosity as well as its economy, while also appreciating the mechanical brilliance of McDonagh’s inspiration. Whenever, for example, two characters absolutely must not meet, McDonagh figures out a way to bring them into contact immediately. Watching this movie with an audience, you can feel people catch their breath before some scenes even start, in anticipation of fireworks.
That’s a serious gift, but one all the more impressive when combined with a penetrating understanding of character. Where another director might settle for stereotypes, McDonagh gives us human beings. Thus, Sam Rockwell — an original and underused actor — finds one of his best roles in years, playing a dumb cop who starts the movie unable to express any doubt, discomfort or emotional pain except through violence. It’s a wonderfully intuitive performance, full of illuminating touches, as when the cop laughs inappropriately in moments of stress and embarrassment.
Like the best movies often do, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” leaves audiences with a complex set of emotions, and with a hard-todefine hint of the profound. There’s no message here, exactly, but instead a definite feeling — of an undercurrent working beneath life’s surface chaos, something worthwhile and humane.