Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is just the third feature length film from writer-director Martin McDonagh, though before making movies he had made his name as a playwright in the British theater scene. All his films have a dark tone. In Bruges, my favorite of the three, is darkly funny. Seven Psychopaths is a darkly psychedelic. Three Billboards is just dark.

Initially, the story is framed as a single mother looking for answers going up against the corrupt and useless police department that wouldn’t provide her closure. Her teenage daughter was raped and murdered and no one was held accountable. It is easy to invest in this narrative. Stories about miscarriages of justice aren’t uncommon and the early parts of the film prime us for this familiar story, although with significantly better writing than one might find in a Lifetime movie that utilizes similar tropes. It isn’t long, however, until the rug is well and truly ripped out from underneath this familiar premise.

The movie begins to show the other side of many situations that seemed to be black and white. It is hard to talk about the details of the movie without giving too much of it away, which I never like to do, but suffice it to say that everything is substantially less black and white, and decidedly more grey, than things first appear. Most everyone, in their own way, is intensely flawed in destructive ways, both to themselves and others, but are also capable of regret and redemption. The police department’s supposed failings may be overstated. The mother’s obsession with justice leads to dangerous vigilantism.

The movie is also an excellent meditation on vengeance. I think what is challenging about the piece is that the inciting crimes are so heinous you don’t necessarily question the mother’s need to make someone pay. However, the reality of the story is way more complicated than that. The mother is obsessed with vengeance and if she can’t get it from the criminals she will get it from the police department, regardless of their culpability in anything that’s happened. This need escalates beyond the titular billboards and into much more dangerous acts of retribution. By the end of the movie, it is even implied that once the police are no longer a viable outlet for her rage, she will find another to take their place. As this grows into an unhealthy need for revenge, the movie asks us to question at what point did this character let her bloodlust displace her originally stated need for answers, for closure, for justice.

Despite the bleakness of the film and the depressing nature of its themes and story, I commend the movie for not falling into misery porn. There is an artistry here that elevates the material beyond simply wallowing in the systemic failings of a small town and the inability of central characters to find catharsis.

For starters, in typical McDonagh fashion, the bleaker elements of the movie are broken up by brief moments of levity. There are a decent number of snarky quips, physical gags (mostly courtesy of Sam Rockwell), and a few scenes with a cheerfully oblivious teen from out of town whose inability to read the room always got a giggle out of me. That being said, these comedic moments are frequently sprinkled into otherwise intense scenes and so, while they do help break up the darkness to some extent, they don’t offer a total reprieve from it.

The movie also allows some small glimmers of hope in among the burning wreckage of the character’s lives, providing moments of self reflection and at least temporary redemption to those who use their time being put through the proverbial wringer to consider their own personal failings. In one case, this redemption is more obvious and traditional, but there are plenty of other times in which it is quite subtle, or even barely discernible, but these elements provide just enough contrast to the movie’s dark tone to make it more than simply a spectacle of suffering.

Three Billboards touches on many rough subjects, from horrifying crimes like murder and rape, to social failings like racist cops and other forms of bigotry, to the just plain depressing like terminal disease and suicide. Without the ridiculous comedy of In Bruges or the psychedelic weirdness of Seven Psychopaths, Three Billboards has little to balance its darkness against. This isn’t a bad thing, it just isn’t something for everyone. It is the kind of movie where you want to turn on a bunch of bright, cheerful lights and take a hot bath after watching to detox yourself from its emotional state. It isn’t a hard watch, it’s absolutely gripping. It’s just hard to watch, if you understand the distinction.

Would Recommend: If your psyche is bulletproof and a few hours of vicarious misery won’t spoil your mood.

Would Not Recommend: If you look to movies as pure escapism from the harsh realities of life.