Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

Martin McDonagh has never been one to shy away from confronting the complex grayness of morality in people, spanning from off-color PC subversion, to boiling emotions that often lead to violent end results, all with a very dark sense of humor. Such things served him well with hidden gem In Bruges, and less so with Seven Psychopaths. Now he's at it again, with what may very well be our next Best Picture Oscar winner, and what happens to be an outstanding career best, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

McDonagh's latest feature is a film boiling in anger, best encapsulated by Frances McDormand as Mildred Hayes, the mother of a teenage girl who was raped and murdered, who has been deeply rocked to her core. She's a woman of seeding bitterness, regret, and trauma, having previously been involved in a toxic marriage to her alcoholic ex-husband (John Hawkes), and driven to obsession by the case surrounding her daughter. But mainly she's defined by frustration, frustration aimed at the local Ebbing Police Department, who've yet to make an arrest. It's a frustration we can sympathize with, drawing inspiration from real life cases of missing persons and cold cases that go unsolved, each with an accompanying desperation to tie up loose ends, and find satisfaction in an unfortunate event, showcased in extreme but powerful effect by Mildred's title billboards, publicly shaming the police in an effort to reach her end means.

But at the end of it all, it's a painful fact that not every case has such satisfaction. For as much hassle as she tends to give the police, even directly calling out their chief (Woody Harrelson), it's still made perfectly clear that try as they might, what minor hopes for closure may ultimately be futile. Not simply due to the case forever remaining a mystery, but this misguided belief that any ills and holes could instantly be healed by filling in the blanks. In fact, by directly drawing attention to her daughter's final moments, and making that what defined her even if unintentionally, said wounds are only made worse by continually dragging them out rather than privately grieving. Even if justice is achieved, Mildred is still such a damaged individual, at times even self-righteous in taking matters into her own hand, that change is unlikely to come from it anyway.

McDonagh certainly gets a lot of mileage out of current politics surrounding the action of the police force, in addition to missing persons cases remaining unsolved, cover topics involving testy race relations, and the misguided belief of "to embarrass one is to embarrass all." It would have been very easy to play the police officers as easy villains, but McDonagh deserves major credit for taking a more objective stance on the matter. No doubt he has some scathing thoughts on the more negative side of police dealings, but he also blesses those that are a part of it with a much-needed sense of humanity, even taking a double-edged sword approach in confronting the aggression towards those people, and their symbols, causing just as much damage through their blind hatred, and undercutting the context of their own messages and causes.

That humanity is immeasurably supplied by its two most prominent surrogates, Chief Willoughby, and Officer Dixon. Taking a more sympathetic approach is the former, as played by Woody Harrelson. Always etched on his face is this powerful sense of compassion and understanding for Mildred's fuming hostility, and even as she mocks the force and belittles him for his actions, you can always see his own sense of desperation to find closure for her, even though he's well aware that such a day may never come, and that bitterness will never be quenched.

As for the latter, played by Sam Rockwell, this is a true force of nature, and one of McDonagh's finest creations. If anyone's anger could ever hope to match Mildred's, Dixon would be the man for the job, having garnered himself a reputation for being a ruthless and violent cop, and building a deeply racist streak in the meantime. As he goes through the movie, and we see him follow one debauched act after another, as he shows just how dirty he's willing to get his hands, it feels hard to believe that McDonagh would be able to do what he accomplishes with Dixon, gradually turning him from "pathetic"... to "sympathetic". At his core, Dixon is still capable of becoming a decent person, if only he were to shed his fury, and allow more compassion and love into his heart, the kind that made him gravitate to Willoughby as if he were a father figure. We're presented with a character continually forced to confront the consequences of his actions, and how they've only served to make him more miserable, crafting along the way a powerful and tender path to redemption.

McDonagh is terrific at handling that balance between hard-hitting drama and darkly comical moments, as well as evoking the mood of his title town, a worn-down podunk country town of seeming insignificance, but whose minor charms and subdued sense of beauty make it feel like its own character. It's a film unafraid to hurl you into hard moral quandaries, or to deliberately undercut satisfaction for more honest and ambiguous conclusions - including its fantastic ending scene which is among the year's absolute best, but it's also a film that hits hard with its earnest and emotional center, even as it faces glimpses into the most cynical the world has to offer.

I really don't get how you can say the backlash is unwarranted and then give it an 8.5 when you spend the majority of this review shitting on it (deservedly so).

I know this is all subjective and I don't intend to change your mind, but for the purpose of discussion; how is it well-written if you complain about the failed attempts at humour and clunky characterisation?

And I don't get how anyone can even say it's well shot either, it's flat shot-reserve-shot TV movie tier with absolutely no visual flair.

“It’s supposed to be a deliberately messy and difficult film,” McDonagh said, saying he isn’t too angry about the discussions that have erupted over the movie. “Because it’s a messy and difficult world. You have to kind of hold up a mirror to that a little bit and say we don’t have any kind of solution. But I think there’s a lot of hope and humanity in the film and if you look at all those issues with those things in your heart, we might move on to a more interesting place.”

McDonagh admits that the backlash did hurt for a little, but he realizes he’s “not making films for six year olds” and he’s not making “The Avengers,” and therefore a more polarizing response is always a risk.