"three billboards outside..."

"Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" may prove to be the best film of 2017, and it's easily the most absorbing and profound of playwright-turned-filmmaker Martin DcDonagh's long, lucky career. Following a pitch-perfect outing with 2008's "In Bruges," which revealed Colin Farrell's brilliant comedic chops to the masses (and ultimately led to a fruitful partnership with Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos), McDonagh's sophomore undertaking, "Seven Psychopaths" felt positively anemic by comparison. Though, one could argue that it laid the groundwork for seedy violence masquerading as dark, off-kilter comedy as a sort of antecedent for his unapologetic third (and so far best) film. "Three Billboards" begins by introducing us to a serene and foggy, forgotten Southern pasture, replete with three forsaken billboards, all of which seem to scream out something ominously apocalyptic. We're also led to believe that the frayed, almost splintering roads on which they look down upon are just as impotent and ineffectual as they are — after all, this is the same small type of Southern town which likely voted for Trump, either out of fear, spite, hopelessness or a desire to burn the entire "system" down. Yet that very same anger rages right back in the form of Frances McDormand's grizzly mom Mildred Hayes, a nearly broken mother reeling from the rape and murder of her teenage daughter, and the hamstrung police force which has done little to quell her suffering since.

McDormand commands the screen as few 59-year-old actresses in Hollywood are allowed to do, a leading role for the ages which baits her single-minded fury against every insufferable male of patriarchal authority who stands in her way. Even when the chief of police attempts to make peace by revealing he has cancer, she responds, "Well then hurry up and find my daughter's killer... before you croak." There's a tender blend of pain, realism and humor here which lends McDonagh's script an added layer of credibility, and an even wilder bloodthirstiness one can only enjoy after a beloved main character has been killed off — though it is McDormand who carries the weight of this work as anti-mild mannered Southern belle Mildred, a red-hot firebrand who employs her acerbic lip to emasculate men with reciprocal acts of intimidation. Their verbal castrations are, without any doubt, the highlights of "Billboard's" two-hour runtime — yet the film doesn't rely on McDormand's effervescent monologuing to get its deepest points across; it employs two terrific character actors; Woody Harrelson as Police Chief Willoughby, and Sam Rockwell as his surrogate son/ sidekick Dixon. Rockwell's deft performance in particular is revelatory, based on equal parts writing and gifted improvisation, he creates a portrait of a man-child simultaneously scorned for his racism, misogyny, alcoholism, yet admired for his loyalty toward his mother, the chief of police, and to some extent Mildred herself, who at first butts heads with Dixon until he catches an unexpected break in her daughter's case.

The ripple effect generated by these billboards of course, which are erected in some measure to elicit feelings of shock, anger and a renewed interest in Mildred's cause, turns the community inside out, and there's no chance in hell these characters can move forward until they rectify the horrors and sins of their own small town mentalities — where police brutality, especially against women, people of color and the poorest among them, are thrust into some some kind of uncomfortable, exculpatory spotlight. Still, beyond the inescapable infernos and indignation abound in Ebbing, there is something remarkably sweet lying just beneath the surface of its southern inhospitality, which redeems the sickest and most maligned characters who occupy it. Characters we're so quick to judge (and hate) at first glance. After all, when a role is so well-written that the audience roots for that person to be burned alive, only to wish their heads won't be blown off a mere thirty minutes later, that is a minor miracle on the part of McDonagh, McDormand, Rockwell and Harrelson punching above their weight class to create something truly arresting and special. We may never know the answers to the questions posed here, or in any of McDonagh's other work for that matter, but the madcap journeys we take in reaching them always seem to supersede our own expectations. Perhaps it's because the real beauty lies in forcing us to change those very same questions. After all, how else are we supposed to ever get to know each other, the world around us, or for that matter, our own damn selves?

"THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI" Rated R. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes.

Ruben GuevaraNovember 21, 2017