Review: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) - Martin McDonough

       Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Or: 3BbOEMs as the tech crowd is calling it) is a black comedy about a woman seeking justice for the rape and murder of her daughter. If the words "comedy" and "rape" strike you as polarizing, or hell, just plain "very uncomfortable," don't feel bad, that is what write and director Martin McDonough wants you to feel (I'm guessing, or rather, hoping). 3BbOEMs (which I promise I'll never type again) is a movie about horrible things perpretrated on other not good people, in a large, swirling attempt to answer the question "Who's right?" While I greatly appreciate the movie's understanding that no such answer is the right one, let alone one we can even, possibly ever, reach, Three Billboards (isn't that nicer?) spends an inordinate amount of time on terrible people doing terrible things, almost to the point of tiresomeness. It's a truthful, interesting, and oft-funny-as-hell movie that just missed the mark from something ambitiously good to legitimately great.
       Frances McDormand, who is objectively fantastic in this movie, and who I love deeply for having given modern Hollywood its best character ever committed to film (#margegunderson4lyfe#fargo#coenbrothers#noijustthinkimgonnabarf) has the difficult yet badass role of Mildred Hayes, a devastated mother who is still dealing with the assault/murder/lack-of-arrestable-convictions of her teenage daughter not even a year ago. In an attempt to get the police focused on the task at hand, she puts up ads on three adjacent and abandoned billboards, challenging the police and police Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) specifically. With those billboards sparks weeks worth of comedic and desperately tragic shenanginans, some hilarious and others misguided, even difficult to watch. The cast of characters involves an Ebbing cop with a violent and racist past (if it were possible to bottle Sam Rockwell performances I'd slather myself up in them bi-weekly and just rub it into my body. I'd probably have to take off from work), her still grieving son (Lucas Hedges), her absolute cunt of an ex (John Hawkes) and a town local who's soft on Mildred (Peter Dinklage. In case you were clueless by this point, yes, this paragraph is supposed to make you say "holy fucking shit" it's so talented. It is). The result is a really good movie that flirts with greatness, but is stymied by its own strange belief of what is funny versus what is dramatic.

       I really liked this movie, but there were times during my viewing that I questioned what I was watching. While the movie is, at times, extremely effective as both a comedy and a drama, there are other times where the two don't mesh as well as writer/director McDonough clearly wants them to. Honestly, if it weren't for his film "In Bruges" I would be skeptical something so dark as the the material in this movie could ever be successfully funny as well. But because he kicked so much ass with the comedic/tragic tone of that film, he may have set the bar a bit too high for all his following work. There are parts of the movie that seem less concerned with reality and actual human behavior in service of Mildred doing something defiant (read: extremely violent) or Sam Rockwell's character doing something crazy (read: extremely violent) to the point where I'm not sure who I can possibly be rooting for. Movies and tv shows with unlikable characters is nothing new, but their actions and behaviors have to track realistically within the world that is created. Having characters commit deplorable violence with no legal rammifications, and even being forgiven by their victims (with a really cheesy scene involving the hospital and some shared orange juice) seems too easy, like a quick resolution instead of actual character development.
       And the thing is, is basically everyone character is likable to some degree. Same with Woody Harrleson's Chief Willoughby, who says "goddamn" to his young daughters every other word but still has to be dying of cancer. There is tragedy piled on tragedy piled on tragedy, with some screwball humour in there to unbalance it all. And for the most part, it really does work. It just also occasionally gets tiresome watching people we want to like do terrible things, and even more tiresome when we watch people we hate doing things we abhor.

       In the end, there are a lot of different ways you could go if you want to try and say what this movie "is about," but most of them are unsatisfying answers. Is it about the police state of America? Where hundreds and thousands of sexual abuse cases go unsolved or unreported each year? Or about the state of violence against minorities perpetrated by white officers, especially in the South? Is it about redemeption? That the acts of the past don't have to dictate your future? I mean, kind of, sure. It is about those things. But I just think that the movie functions best when it's about a mother's grief. Frances McDormand is so strong, and such a goddamn force in this movie that it almost seemed unnecessary to do much more than that.
       This is an extremely good movie. One that is funny and smart and often-times poignant. Leave it to Martin McDonnough to take tragedy and make you want to, or possibly need to, laugh at it. Maybe it's unfair of me to want even more, considering most movies made these days aren't even a sliver as good as this one. And there are things in this movie to absolutely love. A great ensemble cast and performances that make the entire film exciting to witness, there were just a few small tonal issues that kept the movie from acheiving greatness as opposed to just flirting with it.

Grade: 3 Duplicate Sets of Billboard Art Brought to you by Lakeith Stanfield