Review of Numerical Recommendation – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

This week, the theme is “numbers in the title”, partly because I need to let off some of my rage while in isolation because my least favourite movie ever is such a numbered title. But regardless, there’s also many a great movie with a number in the title, such as the utter masterpiece that I’m gonna talk about today…

Three Billboards, the movie that should have won Best Picture in 2017 over The Shape of Water, is about Mildred Hayes, played by Frances McDormand, whose daughter was raped and murdered the previous year. Angry at the police for being unable to apprehend the culprit, she rents three billboards outside her hometown reading “Raped while dying”, “Still No Arrests” and “How Come, Chief Willoughby?”, and the fallout from those billboards lead to a series of violent events and a devastating conclusion.

Now first, I’d like to address the controversy around this movie concerning Sam Rockwell’s character, Jason Dixon. He’s a racist, violent man who eventually stops his campaign against Mildred and makes amends with people he’s wronged. After the film was released, some outlets, such as the Washington Post, were outraged that such an unredeemable character could be given redemption. I disagree with this interpretation, even though Dixon is an asshole, because I don’t think he’s truly redeemed. His actions in the movie are more out of vengeance than reparation, and even then, he’s only spurred on by other people such as Caleb Landry Jones’s character. Even if he is redeemed in the film, he’s still an extremely well-developed character, and as a study, he is magnetic. Now, back to the actual film.

This movie was directed and written by Martin McDonagh, an Irish playwright who makes his fourth brush with critical acclaim after winning an Oscar for Six Shooter, getting another nomination for In Bruges, and making the excellent crime comedy Seven Psychopaths. Three Billboards continues his streak of mixing extremely dark subject matter with sizzling dark comedy, an approach which can fall over very badly if handled immaturely, but McDonagh can always pull it off with such élan. His profane dialogue, an eye for beautiful imagery, and a wide diversity of styles and characters combine amazingly in this movie.

This movie is shot beautifully by Doctor Strange/Age of Ultron cinematographer Ben Davis.

And the actors in this movie are stunning. Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell are brilliant in this movie, and deserve every award given to them for their natural, raw performances. Woody Harrelson provides both a strong dramatic grounding force and an excellent sense of comedic foil, Caleb Landry Jones gives probably his best performance as a douchey ad agency guy, and Lucas Hedges, John Hawkes and Peter Dinklage are all great support. I can’t really think of any major acting flaws in this movie.

Two Oscar winners, face to face.

Once again, I must comment on films such as First Man, or Joker, or Parasite, that don’t tell you directly what they are, but encourage you to fill in the gaps. This movie understands the maturity of its audience and wants us to draw our own conclusions, rather than spelling it out to our faces. More filmmakers should watch this.

To conclude, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is an incredible film that should have taken home Best Picture in 2017 (in the entire 2010’s, I agree with about 5 winners. Guess which ones). Go watch it if you are fan of McDonagh, or well-written mature drama, or black comedy. It is an awesome movie.

What numbered movies have you seen, and were they a route to happiness, or just a 0<x<1 square? Leave your answers in the comments below.