There are some movies at the end of which you just wanna stand up & applaud, Three Billboards is definitely one them. I know that I haven’t posted a blog in a while but there was something deeply impactful about this particular film that made me login to my WordPress account.
So, THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI is a darkly comic drama from Academy Award nominee Martin McDonagh (In Bruges). After months have passed without a culprit in her daughter’s murder case, Mildred Hayes (Academy Award winner Frances McDormand) makes a bold move, painting three signs leading into her town with a controversial message directed at William Willoughby (Academy Award nominee Woody Harrelson), the town’s revered chief of police. When his second-in-command Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell), an immature mother’s boy with a penchant for violence, gets involved, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing’s law enforcement is only exacerbated. — Fox, Searchlight Pictures.
I went into this movie nearly blind other than the knowledge that it has got rave reviews & academy nominations for the Best Movie, along with all it’s lead cast getting personal nominations as well. Other than that the movie just does the work for you, it throws you into the deep end right from the word go. It is very unapologetic towards the it’s message & how the story goes about conveying it.
The acting performances are just superb, not only do you feel all the pain & agony, the strength & vulnerability of Frances McDormand’s Mildred Hayes, who has lost a child, you get her anger towards the police in fighting for justice & the consequences of her actions in the process but you also can’t help but sympathize with Woody Harrelson’s Chief Willoughby, you see his helplessness, you see that he is good man, a good father,a good cop who just has been dealt a bad hand in life. His journey is the one that joulted me the most. On the other hand, it’s Sam Rockwell’s performance as Officer Dickson that makes you hate him/love him but still end up understanding as the man he depicts.
The other thing that really loved is how McDonagh uses humour to both lighten the mood at some hard hitting moments but still never makes a joke of the emotions & heart of the story. Infact for me it was the dark comedy that drove a lot of serious points through, which otherwise my mind would subconsciously block because of it being too hard & dark to accept.
So, without going on forever, I’ll end with a final few sentences. Three Billboards is a great movie, with characters that feel & act very real, they have real life problems, you can connect with them, feel their pain & in rare moments when the director has allowed it, also be a part of their happiness.For the good part of the 117 minutes duration of the film, I felt like I was there, right in the middle of Ebbing, Missouri, the only sad part, was that there were hardly 4 more people in an otherwise empty theatre with me.
So this is you MovieFriend Aryanurag signing off, with a small request, that in this day & age of blockbusters & spectacle films, try to give Three Billboards a share from your wallet, as you definitely won’t regret it. Goodbye & have great time at the movies.
MovieFriend 