THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI – Review

Frances McDormand gives her best performance since FARGO over two decades ago in THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBIBG, MISSOURI which, despite its cumbersome title, is one of the best films of 2017. She plays Mildred Hayes, a middle-aged divorcee who, out of grief and frustration, rents three dilapidated billboards outside the sleepy burg of Ebbing, Missouri (look it up – it’s one town over from Blaine) and has them decked with incriminating messages; “RAPED WHILE DYING”,“AND STILL NO ARRESTS”, and “HOW COME, CHIEF WILLOUGHBY?” Mildred is basically declaring war on Ebbing’s Police Chief, William Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), but the locals are incensed at her, mostly because the Chief is not only widely beloved, but he’s also dying of pancreatic cancer. Mildred doesn’t care what her neighbors think or of Willoughby’s fine character and impending death. She’s just angry because several months have passed and not enough has been done to catch the culprit that’d raped and murdered her daughter Angela, and then burned her corpse. Deputy Dixon (Sam Rockwell), a short-tempered mama’s boy with a penchant for beating prisoners (or at least the black ones), is most annoyed  by Mildred’s antics and nobody is safe from his violent wrath, especially young Red Welby (Caleb Landry Jones), who’d rented Mildred the billboards in the first place. Mildred’s resentful teenage son Robbie (Lucas Hedges) is forced to face the torment of his fellow high-schoolers who support Chief Willoughby while her ex-husband, Charlie (John Hawkes), shacked up with 19-year old Penelope (Samara Weaving), is also strongly opposed to her actions. Mildred’s only support comes from James (Peter Dinklage), a sweet midget with a crush on her and Denise (Amanda Warren), her co-worker at the local gift shop who ends up in jail as punishment for their friendship. The whole plot goes terribly wrong, violently and comically, and the less I tell you about THREE BILLBOARDS, the more you will enjoy it.

A comic thriller with a deadpan tone, THREE BILLBOARDS is armed with terrific performances and memorable characters written by director Martin McDonagh. Standing above it all is this most unlikely heroine portrayed beautifully by Frances McDormand. Mixing biting comedic timing with acid-tongued, rage-fueled despair, Mildred’s tough to embrace. Her general demeanor is vulgar and off-putting and there’s a terribly sad moment in flashback where she flippantly tells her doomed daughter (Kathryn Newton) that she hopes that she’s raped and murdered walking home. There’s a great scene when local priest Father Montgomery (Nick Searcy) comes to her home to urge Mildred to take the billboards down since, after all, Chief Willoughby didn’t commit the murder. She launches into an angry tirade about culpability, questioning that, since laws have been tailored to indict lawbreakers for the crimes of their accomplices, why shouldn’t police be held responsible for unsolved crimes. It’s one of several commanding speeches the actress delivers in the film. Sam Rockwell has been receiving well-deserved acclaim for his work in THREE BILLBOARDS and McDonagh does a better job of reining him in here than he did with SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS, where the actor tried way too hard to steal every scene. Deputy Dixon is a bully with a badge and a gun and he seems like someone the audience will never sympathize with…until they do. Even better is Woody Harrelson, providing a surprisingly moving mix of toughness and tenderness as Willoughby. Watch for a heartbreaking, wonderfully-acted moment where Willoughby coughs blood all over Mildred’s face while interrogating her. All of the supporting cast in THREE BILLBOARDS are at the top of their game, from Caleb Landry Jones’s goofy sign salesman to Abbie Cornish’ role as Willoughby’s loving wife to John Hawkes’s tense and wiry turn as Mildred’s ex (director McDonagh generates great tension in a scene where she delivers a wine bottle to him at a restaurant, wielding it like a club). I wish Peter Dinklage’s James had been better fleshed out as he was the one character that didn’t quite fit in, but overall this is top-notch work from an imaginatively-assembled cast. With THREE BILLBOARDS, sweet-natured cheer is combined with twisted malice, and unspeakable grief with offbeat humor, all set against a familiar mid-Missouri backdrop. The result is a modern masterpiece and highly recommended.

5 of 5 Stars