Film Review: Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

[Spoiler alert: I think my review will give away the ending to anyone who has not yet seen the film.]

Wikipedia page.

The SIGNIS review of this film can be found on this page (you will need to scroll down to near the bottom of the page): SIGNIS Film reviews - January 2018.

I certainly concur with that review in saying that it is a very interesting film, though I am not sure about its use of the word "entertaining". There are several points where others in the cinema laughed - usually where some violent wrongdoing was being blatantly denied - most of which I failed to find in the least bit funny. To identify this film in any way as a comedy is, I think, to miss its point altogether. Take out the reference to having your funny bone repeatedly knocked, and the review at the Guardian captures something of the seriousness of the film.

The Guardian review is also correct to recognise the extent of the violence portrayed in the film, just as the SIGNIS review identifies the extent of the use of expletives (and the expletives used are not the polite ones). As the early parts of the film unfold one gains a sense of violence, both physical and in language, growing and feeding upon the violence that has preceded it. As the Guardian review suggests, one is led to wonder whose violence is really at the centre of the film; and, likewise, whose character is at the centre of the film. Is it the Chief of Police Willoughby, the police officer Dixon or Mildred Hayes?

But there is a point at which the plot of the film reaches a turning point. This is when two key protagonists (Dixon and Mildred), in different ways, have the hatred that is eating up their characters pointed out to them. These scenes are particularly moving, and beautifully shot. And the later parts of the film show how these characters gradually overcome their hatred. The stillness of the cinema audience at this point in the film was quite marked.

In the very last scenes, however, we are left with the possibility that they have not after all finally overcome their hatred, as they set off to track down and kill a culprit. When Mildred asks Dixon "Are you sure about this?", the tension as you wait for his reply - "No. How about you?" - is quite tangible. The characters leave us having agreed to sort it out on the way.

So in the end, the violence born of hatred that is portrayed in the film - and is not completely absent even in its later stages - is redeemed in the portrayal of hatred overcome by precisely the characters who have most clearly manifested their hatred. Seen in this perspective, the film is quite stunning. One can also appreciate in this perspective that the hatred being overcome is not just a hatred directed towards others, but a hatred that has a dimension directed towards one's own behaviour as well.

But the speed at which most of the cinema audience left when the credits started to run made me think that very few of them appreciated this perspective at all ....

It isn't for the faint hearted, but I do think this is a film to see.