In an unexpected twist, my dad is the one who wanted to watch this film, after reading in the local paper that it was the best film ever, I actually fancied watching Darkest Hour instead, but I didn't mind watching Three Billboards, since I'd heard such good things, my concern was actually that dad would fall asleep, second unexpected twist, he actually didn't, to my surprise, third unexpected twist, we really liked it, and won't shut up about it, I guess I now know how that feels. On an important note, I will be bringing up spoilers in this review, but I'll save them for the end, and trust me, if you have any interest in watching the film, which you should, you don't want spoilers, so give them a skip if you haven't seen it.
Three Billboards is a hard film to talk about, since it's such an interestingly structured film; a lot of the beats you'd expect in a film like this never happen, it's something that must immediately be brought up, since a lot of audience expectation is going to be subverted and undermined, what this means however is that this film is an amazing piece of storytelling, the film's twists are excellent and the directions it takes a lot of its characters is striking, there are moments in this film that were really giving me the feels, as huge emotional moments were happening, and I genuinely didn't see a lot of them coming, one in particular that really changed how I look at this film, for the better. This does mean that people who want a certain thing out of their films will possibly be disappointed; someone who looks at this film wanting a go-girl quest for Justice will not be getting that, the film doesn't play it safe with its story, nor does it play it clean, which is something I adored about it. If you'd watch the red-band trailer on YouTube, you'd know that this film has some colourful vocabulary, but believe me, the trailer was just a taste, Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson and the rest of the cast fuck, piss, shit, cunt, bitch and nigger their way through this entire film and it is hilarious, way more so than it really should be, but the film's language doesn't feel out of place, rather it feels justified, deserved, it works for the story and characters, and I can't stress enough how funny it is. This film doesn't hold itself back, not just in its language, but in its content and depiction of violence, which is both unexpected and extreme; this film deals with a lot of touchy subjects like domestic abuse, police brutality, racism, and depression and grief in a very brutally honest way, and despite showing some real nasty shit, it still manages to be an uplifting film, that is down to the fantastic writing, but it's even more down to the excellent characters. Frances McDormand's Mildred is not your typical hero in this film, she's not this paragon in search of justice like a film with this subject matter could have employed, rather, she's kind of cunt; she's in it for justice, sure, but she doesn't care about how other people may feel about it, and she doesn't get weighed down by the abuse and harassment her and her son get, she just gives it back, and it's usually violent, which in this context is interchangeable with hilarious. It's amazing that the film can take a character like Mildred and make her so likable, but it does, she's awesome, you're completely on board with her one-woman army mentality, even when the film forces you question whether or not what she's doing is right, which is actually does, rather than making Mildred a Mary Sue. This is where Woody Harrelson's Willoughby comes in, the Chief of police and seemingly the target of Mildred's campaign, this is another area where the film doesn't play it safe; as Mildred and Willoughby are both going through turmoil in their lives, and are actually sympathetic to each other's problems, Willoughby isn't played as a villainous, lazy cop who never does anything to catch the bad guy, he's a family man, he's loved by the community, and wants to get justice for Mildred and her murdered daughter, he's legitimately a good dude, the villainous, lazy cop role is instead filled by Sam Rockwell, who plays Dixon. Dixon is the epitome of douchebag in this film; he doesn't care about his job, abuses his position of authority in the police force, and is the antagonistic force in Mildred's crusade, as his hatred for the billboards is unjustifiably intense. And it would have been so easy to make Rockwell the villain of the film, since he's such a monumental twat, but this is where the film really takes risks, as it gives this racist, arrogant, hateful, abusive guy a chance at redemption, one that makes him a surprisingly humble and likable character, and is another testament to this film's excellent storytelling. Also Peter Dinklage is in this film, and he rocks that pornstar moustache like a boss, and did I mention this film was funny. The film is darkly comedic, yes, but it's also very well paced, I was never bored, and clearly neither was my dad. If there is a flaw with the film's storytelling however, one which I myself don't hold to be a flaw, the film's ending is abrupt; the film doesn't build to a big climactic conclusion, instead relying on implication to round out its story, and I know for sure that the final big twist of the film is something that a lot of people will not like, I'll explain why when I break out the spoilers, and I personally really like it, but I can understand why others would not, even why they would hate it, it's just one of those divisive endings, I guess.
Right, now for the spoilery stuff, the real reasons I love this film, so there's the warning, there's going to be Spoilers for Three Billboards past this point, so if you don't want them, which you don't, skip to the end. I'll start with Sam Rockwell's Dixon. For the majority of the film, he does fill an antagonistic role; with the film repeatedly referring to his history of being abusive to black people, which makes for a scene that had me in stitches when Mildred tries to get a rise out of him by asking about the nigger torturing, and he tries to correct her by being politically correct, arguing that it's now people-of-colour torturing, which almost made me keel over from laughter. But there's a scene where he goes to the offices of the guy who's renting the billboards out to Mildred and gets really violent, smashing their front door in, punching him and his assistant in the face, and then throwing him out of an upstairs window, which is about as low as he gets in this film, and is made even better by the fact that it costs him his job. I bring this up because it's at this point that his redemption begins, through circumstances I won't go into, he ends up in the hospital, and ends up sharing a room with the guy he threw out of a window, and he says sorry. Past that point he instigates a bar fight with someone who he overhears bragging about something that sounds very similar to Hildred's Daughter's murder, with the goal of collecting DNA evidence, right now in the film he's on his way being a hero, as it looks like him, of all people, will be the one who gets justice for Mildred, and by the end of the film, him and Mildred form some sort of alliance/friendship in their now shared quest for vengeance. Like I said earlier, the film could have easily just made him the villain, and he'd have been a serviceable villain, but it didn't, because this film isn't that simple. What else isn't that simple is Mildred; there's a scene where we see that Mildred really is on her own in this campaign, even her son and ex-husband hate the billboards, and we see it really straining the relationship between her and her son, and the film goes out of its way to not be one-sided. You get why her son hates the billboards, and you get why she feels the need to push forward, because she has nothing left; her relationship with her son is broken, she's lived an abusive life with her ex-husband, she's been all but forgotten by the rest of Ebbing, and, something we learn in a very dark scene, she feels responsibility for her daughter's murder, and it's this exploration of grief and guilt that is yet another reason I love the film. Then there's Willoughby, who is terminally ill, there's a few things about that that caught me by complete surprise, first, when he suddenly coughs up blood during a scene with Mildred, it literally comes out of nowhere, it happens mid sentence, and things like that add weight to the film, the film grounds itself in things like that; it's hard to find justice when there's no evidence to make any arrests, which really sucks when you're a grieving mother, but when you're the chief of police, there's not a lot you can do, unexpected things will happen, and some of them will be bad things, like terminal illness, or a murder, the film does a good job of giving its characters positive and negative attributes, even its heroes. And then Willoughby kills himself. I'll be honest, that was the moment that I decided that I loved this film, it cemented Willoughby in my mind as an awesome character, and it brought a new level of weight to the film, as we hear through a narrated suicide note his reasons for taking his own life, and it's simultaneously beautiful and harrowing, and puts the previous ten minutes or so of the film in a context that punched me in the gut with how good it was. The fact that he likens the billboards to a game of Chess, and admits to paying for the next month of her rent as his countermove, was fucking brilliant. And then there's the biggest spoiler of all, they don't catch the killer, yup, after an entire film of trying to get justice, Mildred ends up not getting justice. This is easily the most unsafe play the film makes, since you'd really expect that in the end, there'd be a happy ending, but there's not, the guy who Dixon suspected wasn't the killer. This is what I think will really disappoint some viewers, even piss them off, but I think it's brilliant; the film has relentlessly never given any of its characters a break, to me, it would have been weird for the film to change that for the sake of a happy ending, and I can understand why it would piss people off that the murderer ends up not going down, but I love it all the same, as well as Mildred's decision to screw justice and settle for revenge, as her and Dixon set out to murder Dixon's suspect, who isn't their guy, but who Dixon is convinced is a rapist. It's then left ambiguous as to whether or not they kill the guy, or even if he is or isn't a rapist, which is a bit unfulfilling, but is no doubt deliberately so, since the film had been so unapologetic up to that point, and up until that point hadn't given a damn about audience expectation or fulfilment.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a film that I love more and more the more I think about it, and I wasn't even too excited to watch it, but damn is it good. Where the film really shines is in its characters and writing, with it's strange ability to make thoroughly unlikable people likable, and it's insistence on using adult language like it was going out of style, but what really makes this film stand out to me is how it tells its story, with twists and turns and a subversive ending that, in keeping with the bleak tone of the film, really worked, the film is an alluring mix of comical and entertaining, and morbidly depressing, and I really enjoyed it. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is great, and is definitely worth watching.
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