The script was written eight years ago for five weeks, while McDonagh travels through America's small cities, which gives much of the feel of the movie. Ebbing is a fictional town that allows some volition, but as a feeling the place belongs to somewhere in North Carolina, surrounded by tall trees of pine forests. Beautiful and tidy, like a garden in which a chopper shovel is buried, Ebbing gathers villagers with a disoriented moral compass trying to co-exist.
After months of no progress in the investigation of the murder of her daughter, Mildred (Frances McDormand) has used three billboards outside the city to tell William Willoughby, the respected local police chief, that things can not continue like this. When his deputy Dixon (Sam Rockwell), an immature person with a propensity for violence, intervenes, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing's police is further aggravated.
Mildred (Frances McDormand):
** It's going to put an end to the shit, you fucking retard. This is just the fucking start. Why do not you put that on your "Good Morning, Missouri" fucking wakeup broadcast, bitch?**
Mildred Hayes is like a feminine version of a Western hero, set out on a march against the unjust and ineffective institution called the police. Originally, McDonagh wanted to shave McDormand's head to look even harsh, but they would totally repel the audience, which may go wrong with the particular structure of the film that does not fully respect the traditional length of the three actions.
McDormand stifles the heroine's harsh sensitivity. If Mildred was only fierce, and was doing everything wrong, she would be a dull hero. If she had lost her only child, she could have anger and ruin, but she had a son. Mildred is unconcerned as a parent, showing sympathy when Willoughby cleanses blood, and despite the pain, finds a way to continue in a world so shaky that you can not even be sure of anything, even in your revenge. And that's the best thing in McDonagh's movie - insecurity after the tragedy. No matter how thick the darkness is, you can not let yourself get to you. Then you laugh with him or laugh at him.
Dixon (Sam Rockwell):
- So what's going on in the nigger-torturing business, Dixon?
- It's 'Persons of color' - torturing business, these days, if you want to know. And I did not torture nobody.
I love Sam Rockwell. Perhaps one of the most underestimated American actors. He has a tremendous courage in his work that makes his roles interesting, that do not always present him in an attractive way. Here he is fat, lives with his mother, wanders over Willoughby, repeats what he says, reads comics, and is generally a shitty cop who just kicks off the numbers. He is also a racist, but at the end of the movie it does not look like it.
Part of McDonagh's artistic feat is that it shows us a different path to the ugly face of human nature. Sometimes it's just a badly disguised wound. So this movie remains without a villain. He is somewhere out there, and his abominable actions have no bearing on the choices made by the heroes in their hearts to deal with the pain and the beautiful change in them. And Dixon is disgusting and poignant, just like a man of mud, created a while ago.
Willoughby:
- Dixon, I'm in the middle of my Goddamn Easter dinner
[to his children] - Sorry, kids.
Willoughby's marriage is perhaps the best analogue to the tone of the film itself. In it elegantly are combined the good emotion, the stupidity and the tragedy. So an episode can include love, humor and death that seems unexpected but inevitable. Willoughby has raw goodness, which is rarely displayed on screen. At first glance, he is the bastard who is guilty of everything, but gradually the beautiful nuances begin to come out. The white man with power, the image that is so shaken in America today, is not shown as a caricature villain. His marriage, responsibility, and personal tragedy build a sheriff's memorial image.
With a heart, cynicism, hope and humor, the simple story of "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" puts a finger on America's pulse and captures the restless heart thrown between racism and foolish left ideas dipped into the poisonous sweet path of political correctness. In this text, I decided to focus mainly on the characters, because they really impressed me (there was no room for the wonderful Peter Dinklage, Lucas Hedges and John Hawkes). Bad people, who are not inherently bad, they are just covered with a dust of fear, insecurity, and fatigue from all the nonsense around them. In such cases, anger is not unnecessary.
"Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" is a film about racism, police violence and, above all, the helplessness of a tragedy that nothing can fix. Every effort that people throw after the tragedy, all the pursuits - whether they are hanging on billboards - are an attempt to connect with others, a handshake, a cry for help. Maybe in the end, you just need a friend with who to go to the sunset with a rifle in the trunk and a charge of revenge that you're not even sure for. And the most important message: It does not matter whether you are a dwarf, a child, a black man, a woman or a gay. If you are a dick, you get a kick in the balls.
