Martin McDonagh is no stranger to combining belly-aching comedy and heart-breaking sadness into one film. After writing and directing the acclaimed hitman comedy, ‘In Bruges’, which earned McDonagh an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay, it was only a matter of time before his flair for this obscurely hybrid genre would be a red hot feature on the awards circuit and once again critics would be lauding his talent. Come Awards Season 2018, and his small release crime comedy ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ has picked up the prestigious Audience Award at the 2017 San Sebastián International Film Festival, and is receiving rave reviews for its directing, screenplay and acting. Having heard such high praise for the film, I gave in and watched it hoping this much-talked-about tragicomedy would live up its critical reception.
Thankfully I wasn’t disappointed, mostly because I didn’t anticipate for it to be quite as touching as it was, as I went in expecting a comedy that wasn’t afraid to be edgy. The same could be said of its tragic element: how do you incorporate hilarity into a story essentially about something so horrific? The answer is Martin McDonagh, who deftly creates fully-realised characters that still feel real despite their questionable moral principals. It’s been seven months since the murder of Mildred Hayes’s (Frances McDormand) teenage daughter. The local police department have made no arrests, and seem more keen on attacking black citizens instead of solving crime. Angry at their nonchalance, Mildred takes matters into her own hands and takes over three abandoned billboards, where she paints slogans pointing the finger at the police force’s failure to find her daughter’s killer. The townspeople are shocked and can’t stop complaining, and the well-respected Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) is stung by this personal attack, but Mildred won’t give up and take her billboards home. It’s not long before a war ensues, and things escalate even further when Willoughby’s upstart deputy Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell) gets involved.
Frances McDormand is excellently fierce as Mildred Hayes, giving a truly knockout performance that has stationed her at the front of the Oscars race. So effortlessly does McDormand convey Mildred’s long-suppressed rage and bitterness that it feels like the part was written for the veteran actress, and it was in fact. McDormand has such a natural knack for deadpan comedy that just one weary or hostile glance speaks several ranges of emotion from the heart. Mildred is not an altogether endearing heroine for her unguarded approach to provoking the police into responding to her. Her behaviour shocks at times. However, the rawness McDormand invests into her performance gives her a humanity that I don’t think any other actress could have pulled off quite like she does. There is an Erin Brockovich quality to her steely toughness, albeit a more unhinged character we see here. The biggest threat to Frances McDormand bagging a second Oscar is Sally Hawkins, whose silent performance in ‘The Shape of Water’ is getting hyped up. McDormand has done enough to justify a deserved win for her fearless, nuanced performance of this embittered mother without any personal limits.
McDonagh’s tragicomedy isn’t to everyone’s taste for its excessive profanities and controversial representations of race and dwarfism. The random flitting between ultraviolence and poignancy gives the film a feel of absurdity, and madness to an extent. We don’t fully identify with the characters’ reflex tendencies for brutality, but that’s the point. Despite the characters’ perplexing actions, McDonagh’s brilliantly written script enables these seeming caricatures to unveil their complexities during the course of the film, so no one is left boringly one-dimensional. So clever has McDonagh thought his characters through that although Dixon finally comprehends Willoughby’s advice to let go of hatred, he doesn’t become a fully redeemed individual nor our personal hero by the end. Some viewers have argued the opposite. Whichever reading we choose to form of this troubled character, the very fact that we aren’t convinced of one without traces of the other is testament to McDonagh’s ability to write flawed human beings that feel real. The script’s bold combination of comedy and tragedy allows its three principal actors to play to their full range, and the result is immensely rewarding.
‘Three Billboards’ boasts something different from its Best Picture competitors: a unique premise that doesn’t fit easily into one genre. The interesting plot device of leaving the fates of the characters unresolved adds to the many nuances woven into the script. The finale (if it can be deemed one) may feel hollow to those who like all loose ends to be tied up, but its ambiguity enhances the richness of the viewing experience. Sharply crafted and brutally funny, the humorous introduction gradually unfolds into something genuinely heartfelt that leaves more than a dry lump in the throat.
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