Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri ***** (2017, Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, John Hawkes, Peter Dinklage) – Movie Review 

Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell give dazzlingly brilliant performances in writer-director Martin McDonagh’s supremely dark and dangerous black comedy crime drama. McDonagh sure does like living dangerously, as he previously showed in In Bruges (2008) and Seven Psychopaths (2012). And we like him living dangerously.

Living on the edge is great, at least in the movies, and provided you don’t fall off. McDonagh stays on the cutting edge throughout Three Billboards, a tale of a mad mother, Mildred Hayes (McDormand), who decides to rent out the titular billboards to proclaim her provocative message that challenges the complacent cops to finally find the man who raped and killed her daughter.

She names the police chief, Sheriff Bill Willoughby (Harrelson), personally on the third Billboard as culpable. Well, after all, he is in charge. He is not exactly best pleased, but he goes along with her, understanding her, empathising with her, even wishing her well. This isn’t your usual cop.

His dim and angry underling Officer Jason Dixon (Rockwell), who lives with his domineering blokish mother (Sandy Martin), goes a bit even nuttier than usual about it, eventually threatening the life of Red (Caleb Landry Jones), the advertising manager who has agreed to mock the police by consenting to take Mildred’s money for the billboards. I’m hoping this isn’t your usual cop, either.

Mildred lives with her school age son Robbie (Lucas Hedges), having been abandoned by her husband Charlie (John Hawkes), who has taken up with a 19-year-old to console himself after the death of their daughter. Mildred is not exactly best pleased, either. There are several other key characters, all of them well sketched in, and well performed.

But back to McDonagh. His screenplay is brilliant, an award winner. It is not a polite sort of script, indeed it crosses several lines. People not fond of the C word can look elsewhere. But it treads adroitly all through, unsettlingly shifting gear suddenly from violent to tragic to comedy to sentimental, and up and down throughout the ride, not missing a beat.

Much of the dialogue is breathtaking, other lines are funny or incisive, or both. The set-up and plot are perfect. It has a good, satisfying finish. It stops just in the right place.

Sam Rockwell: playing dim.

Indeed everything about the movie is perfect. McDormand gives her best performance since her Oscar-winning Fargo. Harrelson and Rockwell have never, ever been better. Jones, Hawkes and Martin, plus Peter Dinklage as James, are tremendous in old-style star character actors turns.

To measure McDonagh’s directing achievement, put Hawkes’s performance here up against his one in Small Town Crime. He is so much more effective here.

McDonagh gets the pacing, mood and atmosphere just right. The film runs an intense 115 minutes and it is over in a flash. It feels precision tooled with a stop watch. Carter Burwell’s score, Ben Davis’s cinematography and Inbal Weinberg’s production design are all perfect too.

OK, so you’re waiting for the ‘that’s all perfect, but…’ moment. But there isn’t one. Three Billboards is superb. A lot of people didn’t appreciate the brilliant Seven Psychopaths. A lot of people are going to love Three Billboards.

Ebbing, Missouri, isn’t a real place. It was shot in Sylva, a small mountain town in western North Carolina. So Three Billboards Outside Sylva, North Carolina, then.

It is screened at the BFI London Film Festival on 15 October 2017, one of the four best films of the festival, along with Loveless, 120 BPM (Beats Per Minute) and Call Me By Your Name.

It won four Golden Globes for Best Drama Motion Picture, Best Actress in a Drama Motion Picture (Frances McDormand), Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture (Sam Rockwell) and Best Screenplay of a Motion Picture (Martin McDonagh).

It had nine BAFTA nominations too, winning five awards including best film, best British film, best actress, best supporting actor and best original screenplay.

It won two Oscars – Frances McDormand for Best Performance by an Actress and Sam Rockwell for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, with five other nominations.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Movie Review 

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