Butler's Cinema Scene

Frances McDormand

“THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI” My rating: A- 

115 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Frances McDormand gives what may be her greatest performance in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”

But then the film scores a trifecta of sorts by also containing best-ever perfs of both Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell.

Add to that the fact that the latest from Irish auteur Martin McDonough (“In Bruges”) is the funniest movie ever about grief, and you’ve got a serious — and seriously hilarious — moviegoing experience.

Not a perfect one, though.  Granted, the first hour of “Three Billboards” is just about flawless. In the latter going McDonough abandons the brilliant character study he’s been presenting and tries to woo us with iffy melodrama.  Still…

The title refers to three billboards on the road near the Ozarks home of Mildred (McDormand).  Almost a year earlier Mildred’s teenage daughter Angela was raped, murdered and her body set afire.  The local cops have hit a dead end and the angry, acid-tongued Mildred decides to jump start the investigation through shaming.

She calls at the local advertising firm and soon those three billboards read like a grim set of Burma Shave signs: “Raped While Dying.” “And Still No Arrests.”  “How Come, Chief Willoughby?”

This is a full frontal assault on the local police led by Chief Willoughby (Harrelson).  By all accounts Willoughby is a decent guy who has exhausted all leads. DNA collected at the crime scene doesn’t match anyone in the data base, and Willoughby rejects Mildred’s demand that the authorities collect samples from every boy and man in the county.

Willoughby reveals that he’s dying of cancer, apparently in the mistaken belief that this will soften Mildred’s wrath and she’ll take down the billboards. She’ll have none of it: “They wouldn’t be so effective after you croak, right?”

Woody Harrelson

Mildred may be the toughest, most uncompromising and prickly character of McDormand’s uncompromising and prickly career. You may not like her (she commits an unconscionable and, frankly, ludicrous act of arson against her perceived enemies), but you can’t take your eyes off her as plows through the town’s irate citizenry like a vengeful bulldozer. (One may look at the actress’s excellent work in HBO’s “Olive Kitteridge” as a sort of test run for this film.)

Her attitude even comes through in her choice of clothing. Nothing feminine about Mildred’s garb…she wears a blue jumpsuit and a Rambo-style headscarf, looking like Rosie the Riveter with a “can-fuck-you-up” attitude. (In one of the film’s slyer jokes, Mildred operates the Southern Charm Gift Shop — which thanks to her attitude is utterly devoid of  charm.)

Mildred’s contempt for the cops has its basis in more than just personal grief.  Deputy Dixon (Rockwell) is both astoundingly stupid and overtly racist and Mildred has no problem in calling him on his proclivities: “How’s it all going in the nigger-torturing business, Dixon?”

Dixon’s answer is that nowadays it’s “the person-of-color-torturing business.” (One of the iffier aspects of McDonough’s screenplay is that an honorable man like Willoughby employs a vicious asshat like Dixon; we’re led to believe that the Chief feels sorry for this moron and actually sees some potential in him. This strains credulity, but sets up later questionable developments in the Dixon subplot.)

Sam Rockwell

Mildred’s uncompromising quest for justice unfolds against her personal life.

Her son Robbie (Lucas Hedges) wearily endures the contempt of his classmates, who pelt Mildred’s car with sodas when she drops the kid off at the high school. She responds by wading into the crowd and kicking the perps in their teenage crotches.

Despite her foul attitude, Mildred has a beau of sorts.  Used auto salesman James (Peter Dinklage), recognizing a fellow outsider when he sees one, tentatively woos the touchy woman.

Mildred’s ex, Charlie (John Hawks), sides with the townspeople in opposing the billboards, despite the fact that Angela was his daughter.  Anyway, he’s busy bonking a dumb-as-nails 19-year-old (Samara Weaving).

“Three Billboards…” doesn’t allow us to get too comfortable; it’s always pulling changeups.

The bitter hilarity of Mildred’s quest is contrasted with the final days of Chief Willoughby, who is putting a brave face on his terror and fighting for a degree of normalcy with his wife (Abbie Cornish, who unfortunately cannot get the Australian accent out of her Missouri twang) and two young daughters.

And then there’s the despicable Dixon, who is so browbeaten by his Medusa of a mother (Sandy Martin) the we start to understand his rage. In fact, despite the character’s savagery (he tosses the ad guy who leased the billboards to Mildred out a second-story window), Dixon’s defeat, humiliation and redemption is offered as a story as compelling as those of Mildred and the Chief (it isn’t, but nice try).

McDonough’s love of thwarted expectations extends even to the murder mystery that launches the film but which defies easy solution.  This is less a whodunnit than a changes-we-went-through-while-trying-to-figure-out-whodunnit.

Filmed in North Carolina (which explains why these Ozark Mountains are about twice the height of the ones Missourians are used to), the film is technically polished, but the focus always  is on the characters, who will stick with you long after the lights come up.

| Robert W. Butler