Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

September 4, 2017 (Venice International Film Festival), November 10, 2017 (United States), January 12, 2018 (United Kingdom), release dates

Directed by Martin McDonagh

Screenplay by Martin McDonagh

Music by Carter Burwell

Edited by Jon Gregory

Cinematography by Ben Davis

Frances McDormand as Mildred Hayes

Woody Harrelson as William “Bill” Willoughby

Sam Rockwell as Jason Dixon

John Hawkes as Charlie Hayes

Peter Dinklage as James

Abbie Cornish as Anne Willoughby

Caleb Landry Jones as Red Welby

Kerry Condon as Pamela

Darrell Britt-Gibson as Jerome

Lucas Hedges as Robbie Hayes

Želiko Ivanek as the desk sergeant

Amanda Warren as Denise

Kathryn Newton as Angela Hayes

Samara Weaving as Penelope

Clarke Peters as Chief Abercrombie

Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures

Produced by Blueprint Pictures, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Film4 Productions, Cutting Edge Group

Frances McDormand plays Mildred Hayes, a woman grieving the rape and murder of her daughter seven months prior to the start of the film. Mildred Hayes commissions three dilapidated billboards on a rarely traveled road outside the small town of Ebbing, Missouri, to send a message to the Ebbing Police Department and specifically to the police chief, Willoughby. The billboards, in order, read:

◊ Raped while dying

◊ And still no arrests?

◊ How come, Chief Willoughby?

The message sets off a firestorm (literally, in two separate cases) of protests and condemnation. Not from Chief Willoughby: He’s surprisingly sympathetic. Some of the police officers under his command, including Officer Jason Dixon, take exception to the billboards. Office Dixon in particular objects to the television news interview that Mildred gives after journalists take note of the new billboards. In the interview, she states that some officers are more interested in harassing African Americans instead of investigating what she calls real crimes. It’s a veiled barb at Officer Dixon, and his reaction proves Mildred’s point.

Mildred’s grief and desperation, and Frances McDormand’s performance, are all the reasons needed to call Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri a neo-noir. Mildred drives the narrative because the story is all about her. But the film is not a typical neo-noir, and Mildred is not a traditional femme fatale. She does not use her sexuality to get what she wants, but she will use violence—and that’s thoroughly noir.

“The Last Rose of Summer” is a song used throughout the film and works beautifully to emphasize the sorrowful mood and Mildred Hayes’s grief. Click here for more information about the poem that inspired the song, and click here for more information about the song itself.

Frances McDormand has the most moving scene in the film. The moment comes when Mildred’s son Robbie tries to stop her from saving one of the billboards that has been set on fire. It is already nearly destroyed, and there is little that she and Robbie can do. Robbie refuses to give Mildred a fire extinguisher that still works, and Mildred screams Robbie’s name. All her grief and rage are evident in her voice and on her face.

McDormand is also in the scene that I think is the most frightening in the film: when a customer comes into the shop where she works and threatens her with physical harm. The customer seethes with rage against women. He uses everything that is publicly known about the murder of Angela Hayes, Mildred’s daughter, and threatens the same to Mildred. If another character hadn’t entered the store at the right time, he likely would have made good on his threats. It’s a chilling scene: It contains very little physical violence compared to other violent scenes in the film, but viewers don’t know that on first viewing. The fear of what could happen and the images created by the threats in the mind’s eye are truly unsettling.

McDormand’s performance is exceptional—and not only because of the scenes I just described. Mildred Hayes is a very complicated character. She is capable of great compassion and of extreme violence. She is a victim many times over: of domestic abuse, of the murder of her daughter, of threats from both neighbors and complete strangers. It’s hard not to root for her, in spite of her own acts of violence.

The film does offer the opportunity for redemption, and it comes in surprising ways and for characters you might least expect. Violence, grief, despair seem to generate more and more violence, but then matters take a turn, and some say that enough is enough. I hesitate to say more because newcomers to the story should savor the film, the story, as I was able to do. I want to see the film again because I’m sure I missed some details, not because the plot is lacking but because it’s so easy to become absorbed the first time around by the power of it all.

I enjoyed this film more than I thought I would. The premise is all noir: a woman grieving the loss of her daughter before the film starts. She is awash in grief and despair, and she wants justice for her daughter. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri may not have other elements typical of a noir: no femme fatale, not a lot of shadowy cinematography, no off-kilter shots or extreme close-ups. But it does have a mother’s grief. And it does have a lot of violence for a small town like Ebbing, Missouri.