Even if I’m not able to catch them before the awards, I try to make it a point to check out as many Oscar nominated films as I can. For 2018, there were a few big budget films nominated like Blade Runner 2049, Dunkirk, and The Shape of Water, but it seemed the most praise went to indie-level films, which aren’t always the easiest to find. But, it has been a little while and these films are starting to pop up on streaming services now, which is great because that means I can finally watch them. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri certainly peaked my interest earlier this year, so I figured it was a good place to start.
Three Bilboards was both written and directed by Martin McDonagh, the same writer/director behind the films In Bruge (2008) and Seven Psychopaths (2012). The film featured performances from Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Caleb Landry Jones, Lucas Hedges, and Peter Dinklage. The soundtrack was composed by Carter Burwell.
In the film McDormand plays Mildred Hayes, a woman who fairly recently suffered the loss of her young daughter. Becoming tired with the local police department, and seeking justice for her daughter, Mildred rents out three consecutive billboards from a local advertising agency right outside where she lives in Ebbing, Missouri. On them, she writes of her daughter’s killing and singles out the chief of police, Bill Willoughby (played by Harrelson), demanding that he do more to find the perpetrator. The police force and fellow townspeople don’t take very kindly to this. One of Mildred’s most outspoken opponents is Officer Dixon, a wildly incompetent and bigoted cop (played by Rockwell). Despite the attacks, Mildred refuses to give in and in doing so, might’ve sparked just enough outrage and gained enough attention to catch the killer she’s after.
Although I personally don’t feel like Three Bilboards lived up to the hype surrounding it, I will say that the lead actors deserved all of the praise they received. McDormand, Rockwell, and Harrelson were phenomenal in this film. All three dissolved completely and perfectly into their characters. McDormand commanded every scene she was in. The supporting cast did some great work as well. I was particularly happy to see Peter Dinklage in the movie, no matter how strange his adoption of a southern accent might’ve been. His portrayal of Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones is truly brilliant, and I really hope that he continues to get work in great films like this.
I had a few issues with McDonagh’s script which I’ll talk about in a minute, but overall it was well written. This film showed me that he has quite the talent for writing nuanced characters. As I was watching this film, I found myself getting attached to a lot of them, but I also found myself liking them as much as I disliked them. In the film, Dixon’s behavior is clearly much worse than Mildred’s, but she still does some things that make you want to question her. Even so, you’ll find yourself wanting to keep on watching, and by the end, you will love practically every character and realize their totally unique and bizarre brand of greatness.
McDonagh did utilize a few tropes and cliches in his script, or at least I thought so, but I’m almost willing to overlook it because the rest of the film was so strong. The major issues I had with the writing is how he tried to interject humor and how he handled Dixon. Generally speaking, Three Billboards was a serious film, so I found the attempts even at dark humor to be quite odd. In the beginning when we were being introduced to Dixon it was amusing, but it did start to get old. Later in the film McDonagh tries to make the audience laugh by attaching some ridiculous exchanges to some really intense moments, and it might work for some people but all it did was pull me out of the film. I also think the movie spent far too much time trying to establish Dixon as terrible and incompetent. He spent an hour and 30 minutes out of the film’s roughly two-hour run-time like that. When it came time for a bit of redemption, it went by far too quickly in my view.
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I knew absolutely nothing about this film going into it, and I’m glad. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was a very pleasant surprise. It isn’t anything that would make it into my personal top ten, but it is a fantastic film and definitely something worth checking out if you ever get the time. Overall, the script was solid, the film was incredibly well acted and directed, character development was on point, and the story was compelling.
FINAL REVIEW SCORE: 4/5
All the Right Stuff 