| Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is one of those movies where you are never allowed to get comfortable. Every time you think you know what it’s about, there’s another twist which turns all of its themes on its head. And that’s impressive for a drama, a drama about police relations, racism, homophobia, bigotry, and a parent’s grief about the death of a child. | | 2017
Directed by: Martin McDonagh
Screenplay by: Martin McDonagh
Starring: Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell
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Notable about the film is its attempts to tackle at least four distinct forms of intolerance in one character both head on and in a round about way. He’s the second main character we meet, but first we have to get to the crux of the current wave of unrest in the Midwest state. It has been seven months since Mildred (Frances McDormand)’s daughter was raped and murdered and she rented out three billboards outside of town reminding the chief of police that there have been no arrests yet.
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| Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson in the film THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI. Photo by Merrick Morton. © 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved |
Police Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell) is the first to see the billboards, enraged he calls Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) to get a plan to take them down. He’s not familiar with the law but surely they must be breaking a ton of them. Chief Willoughby isn’t quite as incensed. He believes that women shouldn’t be raped just because their women, black men shouldn’t be arrested just because they’re black, gay men shouldn’t be beaten up just because they’re gay, and dwarfs shouldn’t be ridiculed just because they’re short. Maybe the buck should stop with him since there are many people in his own department who don’t agree with him.
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| Frances McDormand and Lucas Hedges in the film THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI. Photo by Merrick Morton. © 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved |
Rockwell’s Dixon is the primary source of intolerance in the film. He’s a lonely, angry man who lives with his mother and a turtle, and seems to think he has immunity since he’s a cop. But here’s the catch, his character grows. He has to witness the havoc that he himself has wreaked. It is an absolute thrill to watch Rockwell weigh the actions of his past and the vigilantism of his future.
Meanwhile, Mildred has to find the handful of people on her side, which is less and less by the day given her anger and unlawful attempts to find solace. Perhaps Mildred and Dixon have more in common than they ever thought – and that’s the brilliance of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Intolerance hides in every town, in multiple forms, and in billboards along the side of the road.
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