That One Awards Film Where You Ask Why That Film?
And so we enter what is arguably the most unpredictable awards season in years. You don’t need me to tell you what an unconventional year it’s been for cinema. The Oscar frontrunners this year range from Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster masterstroke Dunkirk to Greta Gerwig’s hotly reviewed coming-of-age Lady Bird. Throwing a spanner in the mix as it proves to be the most divisive of the frontrunners this year, is the awkwardly titled Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. The directing debut of Martin McDonagh, writer of In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, Three Billboards has sparked many a conversation as it completed the festival rounds earlier this year and entered the awards season with a girthy arsenal of acclaim and hype.
Such a reputation caused me to exit the cinema with a sense of confusion. Without trying to come across as condescending (apologies if I do), the biggest takeaway I got from this film was: that’s it? Three Billboards is ok enough, mainly thanks to a terrific ensemble that absolutely bring their A-game. The film surrounding them, however, feels so underwhelming and hollow by comparison, that it made me really curious as to what the acclaim was focused on. The story, set in the small town of (you guessed it) Ebbing, Missouri, follows Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand), a mother in a period of grief after her daughter is raped and killed by an unknown culprit. After months of months of the local police department being pretty lax about the case, Mildred decides to spark a fire, sending a direct message to Chief of Police William Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) through the use of three abandoned billboards located on the outskirts of town. This sends shockwaves through the town, setting off a chain of events that lead to some dire consequences.
To its credit, Three Billboards couldn’t be more timely. It touches on a range of social issues that are oh so prevalent in today’s societal landscape. With the recent outpouring of sexual assault allegations and the #metoo movement, there’s something about Mildred’s drive to take action that strikes more of a nerve now than it would have a year ago (or 8 years ago for that matter, which is when McDonagh wrote the script). So too are its observations on racism. Again, there are some echoes to the #blacklivesmatter movement that cement its relevancy amongst the films surrounding it. What I take issue with, however, is that although these issues are raised, they’re never truly delved into with deep enough insight for it to feel like it’s actually saying something. All these issues seem to be there with the purpose of coming across as being #woke as opposed to offering an actual commentary on said issues. For a film that believes that it’s making woke commentary on societal racism, there’s a distinct lack of developed black characters. The black characters that are there are woefully one-dimensional and exist at the expense of the poor behaviour of the surrounding white characters. Three Billboards believes it has themes of combatting racism and sexism, but it never commits to doing that, and instead seems to reward the very thing it thinks it’s combatting.
Three Billboards does echo the tone and black comedy roots of McDonagh’s previous works, and there are times here where he equals those films wit and unflinching dark humour to decent effect. The script (probably it’s biggest Oscar chance) is sometimes very funny; laden with some zinging one-liners. It is, however, unflinchingly mean-spirited, which you could argue is the point and is somewhat of a mirror of a Trump-era America. In a way, yes. One of the film’s strengths is that it (unintentionally?) does a good job at conveying the confliction and feelings of messy confusion of the current times. My problem with this and the main reason Three Billboards doesn’t work nearly as well as it thinks it does is that this aggressively mean-spirited approach strips the characters of any sense of empathy or humanity. Despite the best efforts of the cast, who are genuinely very, very good (McDormand is a force of nature, which goes without saying because when is she not?), the characters feel more like vessels for the film’s existent but shallow approach to its themes. Mildred is obviously in a grieving stage, a period which can drive us to do questionable things as she does in the film. However, we are never really given another way into her character. McDonagh (very occasionally) hints at another side of her, but we are never allowed into it, and as a result, her questionable decisions and actions come across as unnecessarily cruel and unjustified. The ex-husband subplot feels mean, trite and undeveloped. How much more interesting would it have been had it been focused more on her status as a now single mother and her relationship with her son (played by Lucas Hedges). The film instead seems too concerned and interested with giving unjustified redemption arcs to racist characters, represented here through Sam Rockwell’s racist cop Dixon; an arc of which mares an otherwise excellent performance from the always reliable Rockwell.
I feel that a lot of the conversation surrounding this film will be more about its morals and ‘political’ angles, which is undoubtedly important to talk about considering the film itself brings them up (even if it doesn’t seem to actually talk about them). Despite it being an apparent Oscar player, I think there will be less said about how it works as a film, which, if you want a simple answer is…not well. There are some ok flashes of entertaining black humour, but I left the cinema cold. I can see this being an unconventional crowdpleaser, with an ending that is bound to spark much discussion on the car ride home as to what it really means. For me, I was significantly underwhelmed and constantly frustrated by its overreliance on shallow social commentary. It’s by no means an awful film, but I found it difficult to find much that I truly liked about it. It’s kind of just…there. Stay home and watch In Bruges instead.