THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE OF EBBING MISSOURI - A TALE OF ANGER AND REDEMPTION

Warning: May contain spoilers

The first part of this article summarises the film, and in the second part I deliver my thoughts and comments (In case you don’t need or want to read the story)

a. Summary

This film tells the story of a distraught mother mourning her teenage daughter, who was savagely raped and murdered in the town of Ebbing, Missouri. A year has passed after the crime and the local police have yet to come up with a suspect or any clues at all as to why this horrible crime happened.

Mildred Haze, brilliantly played by Frances McDormand, decides to spend her last five thousand dollars to install three billboards along the road near her house. These signs read: “Raped While Dying”; “And Still No Arrests?”; “How Come Chief Willoughby?” and can be seen by everyone entering the small town.

These signs generate a lot of distress and hatred towards Mildred. Chief Willoughby, played by Woody Harrelson, is a well-liked official who is revered by his colleagues and respected by everyone. His second in command, a racist Officer Dixon, is played brilliantly by the usually underrated Sam Rockwell. Dixon is not only openly racist and possibly homophobic but also stupid, bordering on retarded.

Dixon, a loyal lieutenant to Chief Willoughby, tries to bully Mildred into removing the signs and even sends her best friend, an African American lady named Denis, to prison for possession of marihuana. The town’s priest pays Mildred a visit invited by her son Robbie (Lucas Hedges of Manchester by the Sea’s fame) who tries to convince her to take the signs down. Mildred kicks the priest out of the house after implying that he’s an altar boy molester. It becomes clear that Mildred won’t stop at anything including authorities, the church or even the abuse his son is a victim of at school to keep the signs up and the pressure for her daughter’s killers to be captured.

Chief Willoughby pays Mildred a visit and tries to convince her that he’s doing everything he can, and probably is, to catch the killer. He doesn’t threaten Mildred, but it is revealed then that he’s dying of pancreatic cancer, something that Mildred doesn’t care for.

Once every character is well established and we get to know them, or at least what the Director wants us to know about them, things start getting out of hand. Mildred goes to the dentist to have a tooth removed and when she realizes the doctor is going to try to inflict pain on her she grabs the drill and puts a hole through the doctor’s thumbnail. The Chief confronts her and she denies the doctor’s story saying “it’s his word against mine”.

Chief Willoughby shoots himself and leaves a suicide note clearing Mildred of having any influence in his decision. He justifies his actions by writing he didn’t want the suffering of the few last months he had to live and didn’t want his wife and daughters to see him become a shadow of himself.

Officer Dixon goes crazy and gives the guy who owns the billboards a beating, throwing him out a first floor window leaving him badly injured. This is witnessed by the new Chief of Police who has just arrived in town and is dismissed from the police force. Dixon goes on and sets the billboards on fire during the night. Mildred retaliates by setting the Police Station on fire. Dixon was there at night by chance and gets badly burned, just saving his life by the actions of the town’s midget (played by a great Peter Dinklage, who else?)

James, the midget, notices Mildred and realises she’s the one who started the fire but when the Chief of Police asks them what happened James says he and Mildred were together and noticed the fire, promptly attending to Dixon and saving him. He gives Mildred an alibi and it appears she’s out of trouble.

Inspired by a letter that Chief Willoughby left him, Dixon, who is now seriously disfigured with burn marks, seems to want to change his ways. He overhears a stranger in a bar telling a friend about how he enjoyed raping a girl and starts a fight scratching the guy’s face. He gets badly beaten up but with the flesh from the guy’s face sends a sample for DNA testing (the DNA found on the girl’s body wasn’t a match to any known criminals) in the hope to find a match to the killers DNA.

Dixon tells a surprised Mildred about what he did and she thanks him. Unfortunately the DNA isn’t a match but he finds the guy’s address in Idaho.

He tells Mildred the bad news but asks her to go to Idaho to kill this guy as he’s guilty of rape anyway. These two very different characters set off on a road trip with sandwiches and shotguns and along the way they ask each other whether they really wanted to kill this man. We are left with the question of what happened next

b. My take on the film.

This was a pleasantly surprising film. The story is unconventional and brilliantly written by Martin McDonagh, who also directed it.

Like many new authors, McDonagh provides a script full of comedy which is odd given the tragedies unfolding all around Ebbing. It reminded me of Fargo and in some degree of Manchester by the Sea.

Several times there are references to racism. “So how’s it all going in the nigger torturing business Dixon?” was blurted by Mildred. This nigger torturing line was mentioned a few times and the self-appointed moralists of America have blasted the film for this which I found absurd. It’s clearly not the Director’s intention to offend but to rather denounce these practices. In fact the three African American characters are portrayed as decent and hardworking citizens.

The performances are brilliant. McDormand delivers a powerful Mildred, a woman who won’t stop at anything to drive her cause. She drills the dentist’s thumbnail, verbally abuses Dixon every chance she’s got, calling him “fuckhead” in front of his fellow officers and slams the priest with a monologue for the ages.

The best role belongs to Sam Rockwell as Dixon. He manages to get the audience to hate him and then slowly turn around to like him when he decides to do the right thing for Mildred. A racist, violent and almost retarded grown man living with his mother who totally controls him.

This movie is totally character driven. And the main two are extremely powerful and masterfully written. Mildred Haze is one for the ages. The best female character I’ve seen probably since Nurse Ratched, and the lines written for her were just brilliant. The speech she gives the priest when she accuses him of abusing altar boys is simply perfect. The Officer Dixon character is even better. Sam Rockwell delivers Dixon with all his violence, racism, arrogance and stupidity guided by some brilliant script writing. He reminded me of the Wild Bill he played in Green Mile some twenty years ago. The midget was a fantastic touch and Peter Dinklage was great in this part.

This is a movie which I describe as a tale of anger and redemption. Anger because everyone in Ebbing is enraged for the horrible crime that was committed. Enraged at Mildred for blaming good old Chief Willoughby for the failure to provide a culprit. This rage overflows and catches poor Robbie who’s bullied at school; Dixon for the loss of his boss whom he idolised; the Chief’s wife for losing him; Robbie himself for having to be reminded every day of the horrible crime that took his sister. And of course Mildred, who unleashes her anger at everyone, including herself.

Officer Dixon seeks redemption by trying to catch the killer and to do so he gets badly beaten in a bar with the sole objective of collecting DNA. Even though he knows he got disfigured and almost died from the fire started by Mildred, he forgives her for this. He also seeks redemption and apologises to the billboard guy while they share a hospital room.

But the ultimate redemption for Dixon, and for that matter for Mildred, lies in their last adventure, their hunting trip to Idaho in search for the rapist. It doesn’t matter that he wasn’t involved in her daughter’s murder. He had to pay. Someone had to pay. The anger needs to be unleashed and the cycle of hatred must be closed. Did they do it in the end? I think they did.

But that’s only my opinion. And I might be wrong.