Woody Harrelson and McDormand deliver exquisite performances.
The second stage of grief is anger. Grieving mother Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) has zero fucks to give about the remaining three.
Director Martin McDonagh (In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths) provides no easy comfort as he brings his Irish sensibilities to a Southern Gothic in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Mildred takes matters into her own hands when the police in small-town Ebbing have made no arrests in the rape and murder of her daughter. She rents three highway billboards near the murder site, publicly calling out Chief Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) for his lack of action. This divides the town, which had been sympathetic to her plight. Officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell), known for violently abusing his authority (particularly with African American suspects), regards the billboards as an affront, and plots for their removal.
Despite her overwhelming grief, Mildred is not always a sympathetic character due to some of her tactics and her own lack of empathy. Tensions quickly explode into violence beyond what most of us would find defensible. But neither McDonagh nor McDormand defend or justify Mildred’s actions. Instead they showcase the grotesque to dwell on that second stage of grief that we’re told to move beyond gracefully.
The violence alternates between sadistic payback and Flannery O’Connor-style epiphanies, which may or may not absolve past sins. The spectacle blurs the distinction between the two, but it delivers a genuine catharsis as you watch the toxic contradictions within gender, class, and race relations in America play themselves out.
Abrupt changes in tone, nearly offensive in their absurdity, will alienate some audience members. Leave it to McDonagh to upset you, even with the comic relief.
By the end, McDormand’s shock and awe performance produces more awe, as she holds the disparate elements together and pushes Mildred and Three Billboards beyond simple definitions of grief, guilt, justice and grace.
