![]() ![]() For despite being so glum, Three Billboards is often bitingly funny. None shall escape the reckoning that is to come.Īs the latest film from the writer-director of In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, there is a familiar sense of misanthropy and forlorn sorrow throughout this picture, which often can be experienced with an equal measure of incredulity. And more impressive still, almost all of these locals will ultimately play a poignant or uproarious role in this slow motion car wreck, be it Red (Caleb Landry Jones), the sketchy young man who sells advertisement space, the young mother and wife of a doomed sheriff (Abbie Cornish), or even the short-statured car dealer (Peter Dinklage), who has a soft spot for Mildred’s unending glower. But while the sheriff might be a diplomat in his sudden PR battle of wills with the foulmouthed and aggrieved mother, his hotheaded and dimwitted deputy Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell), who is already on thin ice for torturing an African American suspect, is less concerned about giving Mildred the benefit of the doubt.Īs the billboards become the talk of the town, their impact will hit everyone. So Mildred rents the billboards and skirts the line of legal defamation by demanding why the local sheriff’s department, and specifically Sheriff Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), has been unable to offer Mildred closure? The fact that it’s an open secret in the town that popular Willoughby has cancer and will be dead in a few months himself doesn’t affect Mildred’s anger, nor will he garner the slightest sympathy from her. ![]() It’s the filmmaker’s most challenging and sweeping film to date, and it’s also capable of bringing tears to the eye, whether via laughter or whatever that other feeling is that comes when the violence, four-letter expletives, and even ominous wine bottles are put away. Like McDonagh’s previous movies, Three Billboards blurs the line between comedy and calamity, suggesting that there is no real difference, especially in a landscape populated with Midwestern sad sacks ready to explode. To just witness how its characters will connect, crash, or upend one another becomes a densely rewarding mystery unto itself. Such is the strange alchemy of Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards, a layered work that can at once be darkly amusing while still maintaining an unrelenting air of tragedy. Is this sequence going to be violent or emotional, hilarious or bleakly despairing? No audience can know for sure. Thus with McDormand’s hand coiling around the bottle like a serpent ready to bear venom, Mildred saunters to the hubby’s table. ![]() While Mildred’s rebound has been nothing short of grief over the violent loss of their shared daughter, Charlie has very quickly moved on to this Penelope girl, a friendly 19-year-old so bubbly it hurts. She’s been insulted, humiliated, and proven to be a pretty awful human being… but she’s still better than her abusive ex-husband Charlie (John Hawkes), who has mocked her anger for the umpteenth time before sitting back down next to his new girlfriend (Samara Weaving). ![]() Frances McDormand’s Mildred Hayes stands alone in a restaurant with a wine bottle in her hand. There is a scene midway through Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri where it’s impossible to know exactly what is going to happen. ![]()
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