The plot: When the police fail to find the person
responsible for the death of her daughter, Mildred (Frances McDormand) decides
to take matters into her own hands. To draw attention back to the case, she
rents three billboards just outside of town with a direct message for local
sheriff Willoughby (Woody Harrelson). As the police start to feel the pressure,
and the townsfolk give their own reactions to a member of the community being
called out in this fashion, the town of Ebbing, Missouri is about to get turned
upside-down.
Have to admit, possibly as an extension of my rather meh
feelings about the Coen brothers, McDormand has never stood out to me that much
as an actor… until now. The way she balances out her taketh-no-shits
attitude with such intense emotion and truly amazing delivery of her dialogue
is staggering; this is one of those rare moments that makes me give a shit
about the Oscars, because this is a performance that deserves to be recognised.
In fact, pretty much everyone else here deserves recognition. Harrelson knocks
it out of the park, Sam Rockwell turns his usual ways with scumbag characters into
one of the most impressive character arcs I’ve seen all year, Lucas Hedges as
McDormand’s son gets one of the single best lines in the film as a snippy
rebuttal and he pulls it off incredibly well, and Peter Dinklage plays his
literally pitiful character so well that, even with how much everyone seems to
be at each other’s throats, you genuinely feel sorry that it happens to him
specifically.
Even the bit parts are outstanding: Caleb Landry Jones as an
advertiser shows that he can be excellent even without being attached to a
complete whack job of a character, Samara Weaving as Mildred’s ex’s girlfriend
Penelope brings back that captivating energy from The Babysitter to give the film
even more stand-out moments, and Ċ½eljko Ivanek as the police desk sergeant
takes playing-by-the-book in terms of police work and turns it into a laugh
riot with great success. The only real down point in terms of the cast is Abbie
Cornish as Woody Harrelson’s wife. That sentence alone should illustrate the
problem concerning casting, along with how Abbie’s attempt at an accent is far
from impressive, but her diminished role within the narrative means that even
though she is the weakest here, she isn’t nearly weak enough to spoil the film
around her.
Knowing how much darker comedy has been soured over the last
few years, it is a massive relief that this film is as funny as it is. Mainly,
because it zigs in every way that the usual “let’s be dark for darkness’ sake”
fare zags. Rather than relying on rambling nonsense to carry the humour, the
dialogue is very direct and to-the-point, not letting a single syllable go
wasted. As this largely serves the end of characters putting each other in
their place, what we get are a lot of quotables and immensely powerful moments.
Whether it’s telling people precisely what they think to their face, like with
the scene between Mildred and a priest that is about as cathartic as anything
I’ve seen since this blog started, or sharing words of encouragement, like when
Willoughby tells Dixon that he believes Dixon can be more than he is,
everything we hear spoken feels like it has its place in the overall production
and we’re not just watching mandated dead air.
Same goes for the more violent
moments, which are also rather economical in that they don’t ultimately last
that long. They can get particularly gruesome, involving such lovely imagery as
being burned alive or having a hole drilled through your hand, but it never
reaches the point of being drawn out for its own sake. Hell, it never even
feels drawn out at all, given the moments last only a few seconds and are timed
so precisely that they feel more like slapstick.
But the big highlight of the film’s script, beyond the
hilariously cutthroat dialogue, is how well defined the characters are. In
fact, taking all of the main cast into account, this is easily some of the best
character development I’ve seen in a long-ass time, especially on this scale.
From the initial setup, with Mildred wanting justice for her daughter and
appearing ready to take into her own hands when the police won’t, it seems
pretty cut-and-dry. Mildred is in the right, the police are dicks, Willoughby and
Dixon are racists, and those billboards will stick it to them.
However, as we
see more of these characters, complexities start to show. Mildred is driven by
a want for retribution, but also a need to ease her own guilt. Willoughby is
made out to be ineffectual, but shows himself to be far less self-serving than
the film initially implies. Dixon is undeniably incompetent at his job, but
that’s more out of genuine idiocy than anything hateful. As the layers keep
getting peeled back, we are shown a collection of people (not just characters,
but people who feel about as real as
whoever else is occupying the cinema you may end up seeing this film in) who
aren’t so simple to nail down as being good or bad. It acknowledges that, even
though we are driven by basic urges, humans themselves aren’t basic and behind
closed doors, they could be someone you never would have guessed just from a
few select actions.
But why is it set up like this? I mean, we’re dealing with a
story about the police being too busy torturing black people… oh, sorry, I mean
torturing people of colour, to actually solve crimes; how are we supposed to
side with the police here? Well, for a start, that’s not actually the kind of
story this is. Not by a long shot. Far more than a comment on police brutality
or institutional racism, Three Billboards is a comment on prejudice; the
feelings that we harbour against others who really haven’t done anything wrong.
There’s a moment in the film where Penelope is quoted as saying that anger only
begets greater anger. Now, while the film ends up twisting this around for the
sake of extra laughter (and it certainly gets that, as the follow-up line from
Dinklage got the biggest laugh of them all at the screening I attended),
there’s still truth to it.
Every major action shown, from the brief flashes of violence
to the deliciously worded insults, even down to the spite-fuelled decision to
put up the three billboards, is connected to anger. Always directed at someone
and always justified more by gut feeling than anything tangible. However, when
the film starts to shift around the halfway point, that changes. What was once
fury is replaced with patience, what was once vengeance is replaced with forgiveness,
and what was once prejudice is replaced with empathy. It’s a character piece
about how fighting fire with fire (at points, this idea is taken to rather
uproarious extremes) won’t solve anything. Kill with kindness. As someone who
has seen what back-and-forth rage-outs have failed to get done in the real
world, this is another one of those codas that needs to be in circulation right
now.
All in all, I literally only have one complaint with this
entire film, and it’s about a single casting choice that doesn’t even factor
into the narrative all that much. Everything else here is just about perfect.
The acting is among the best I’ve ever seen from everyone involved, the sense
of humour on display is both refreshing and always hits the target, the
characters are sharply defined and make the story even more engrossing, and the
overall message is one that I could not commend enough if I tried. I’m a
pacifist by nature and, knowing how my own violent tendencies turned out
growing up, I don’t see aggression as the answer; not to the problems that are
the most pressing at this moment in history. This film, far better than I ever
could just from these writings, manages to convey why and how there’s a better
solution, in a way that is funny, heartfelt and gripping from front-to-back.
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