Dixon is the poster boy for Trump’s America - ignorant, violent, bigoted and unrepentant - and to have a film that should be about its female protagonist and her story suddenly ditch her and favour him instead so that we can humanise Trump’s America, feels grossly out of line. If his actions and slurs weren’t so extreme, there could be something there, but when he throws a person out of a window for no reason and is essentially given a slap on the wrist, that redemption arc loses any chance of success.ĭixon is the biggest issue with that plagues ‘Three Billboards’, despite Rockwell putting in a satisfactory (at best) performance. You expect there to be a turn around, for the film to set up these thematic threads in order to say something about bigotry in America, but McDonough (a writer who loves to provoke with no clear reason for it) never delivers that turn, instead leaving those characters mostly ill-defined (and in some cases, not even named), acts of horrible violence to hang with no consequence and, strangest of all, snatching the film from Mildred’s hands and making it a redemption story for Dixon. Characters of colour and minorities are made the butts of jokes or recipients of violence from the get-go by the racist police department, especially the combustible and damaged Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell). It’s a rickety beginning though, with McDonough peppering his sharp dialogue and characters with uncomfortably unstable racial commentary and an unclear moral compass. And for its first act, despite many initial hiccups, that seems to be the film we’re watching, centred around a powerhouse turn from McDormand that, despite my dislike for the film, I can’t deny is one hell of a performance. To have such a premise appear in the middle of the #MeToo movement seemed absolutely perfect: a woman who has suffered at the hands of men enacting fiery revenge against them, taking the narrative into her own hands and threatening to burn it down. For this home entertainment review though, I decided to give it a second try, to come to it on its own terms and see whether I could meet it halfway.Īs a concept, it’s an absolute kicker, and seems at first glance absolutely perfect for right now - Mildred Hayes (Francis McDormand), still crippled with grief from the rape and murder of her daughter and frustrated by the lack of police action, rents three unused billboards outside of the town of Ebbing and uses them to directly question the inaction of local police and their chief Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson). On first viewing, I was pretty much repulsed by this film and everything it seemed to say.
For others, like myself, it was grossly out of step, woefully pitched and uncomfortably outdated. For some, it was the right film at the right time, a fierce and angry piece that captured its fire and anger. In the midst of it came Martin McDonough’s award-winning ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’, a thunderstorm of the film that went straight for audience’s throats. The political and social upheaval had been enormous, where the mistreatment of racial and sexual minorities and, most powerfully, women themselves was finally moving from a conversation to a roar. When 2017 came to an end, it felt like the year was as flammable as a tinderbox.