Will having you laughing and crying in the same scene.

Rating: 9/10 (16 January 2018)

In Bruges is quite simply one of the finest movies ever made, managing the difficult task of being rip roaringly hilarious and gut-wrenchingly emotional at the same time, often in the same scenes. This is Martin McDonagh's signature and he's held it through every one of his films. I admit I wasn't so much a fan of Seven Psychopaths (comparatively), but I think I just need to see it again. Nonetheless it didn't squander my anticipation for his next filmmaking adventure; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which is getting a hell of a lot of Awards attention, and that couldn't make me happier. Three Billboards is quintessential McDonagh; dark, hilarious, emotional, shocking, quotable, filled to the brim with characters that ooze depth and development. It'll have you laughing and crying at the same moment, on the edge of your seat, and wrapped up in the worlds of each individual character and their own personal story.
Three Billboards follows the tale of Mildred who seeks justice seven months after her daughter's rape and murder. Angry at the local police department's perceived lack of action on the case, she buys out three billboards outside her home to call out the sheriff and make her stand. It splits the town, between those who support her, and those who are angered by her actions, and those who just get caught up in the middle, like her son, and the advertising company who owns the billboards.
Mildred is an enthralling character to watch. On the surface she's an extremely unlikeable person. She's brash, angry, foul-mouthed, and lacks any kind of tact. She's so blinded by her own grief and anger that she can't see the effect her actions are taking on those around her, whether those actions are morally or legally right or not. But she is only one of many interesting characters in this movie. Three Billboards only has one, unseen villain; the rapist/murderer, and no heroes to speak of at all. Every character exists in their own spectrum of grey, from Mildred herself, to the angry, racist cop Dixon, to the dying Chief Willoughby, to the unsure of himself, but morally grounded Red. None of them are quintessentially good, and none of them are quintessentially bad; just normal people reacting in sometimes expected and other times unexpected ways, as people do.
I'll skip to the acting now, because that's also such a huge part of these characters. Frances McDormand deserves every accolade she gets over the coming months for her performance as Mildred. In lesser hands Mildred's character could easily have fallen flat, deep in the realms of unsympathetic protagonist, but McDormand takes this woman and makes her so oddly easy to root for. Sam Rockwell is the other standout. I've been singing his praises for years, as he's always the best part of any movie he's in, but as Dixon he's only eclipsed by McDormand. At first a bumbling idiot quick to anger, Rockwell manages to handle the one-eighty with such convincing dignity that it feels natural and real, and that Dixon is still there. He was a smart guy after all, just not very good at communicating. Woody Harrelson is also fantastic as Chief Willoughby, keeping the film firm in it's moral foundations. The supporting cast are all great as well, from Peter Dinklage to John Hawkes to Caleb Landry Jones (who's had a hell of a career so far). The only real weak link is Abbie Cornish who doesn't really know what to do with herself, and whose accent is so bizarrely confusing it's hard to understand where she's meant to be from.
But the exceptional character work is only a part of what makes Three Billboards so good. Narratively McDonagh manages to craft a story full of unpredictable turns without convoluting itself with twists, and never feels the need to answer anything (including a plot-cliffhanger of an ending). The way Three Billboards manages to balance dark, serious, violent, and shocking, with funny, silly, and even a dash of slapstick is fantastic, and there's so many moments that completely subvert expectations. One example is an interrogation between Mildred and Willoughby as they play off one another, brought to a halt by a sudden cough of blood, and the tone just shifts with the click of the finger. Mildred goes from smarmy smartass to mothering human being without missing a step. Another is a sudden escalation of domestic argument that results in a knife to the throat, but is quickly interrupted by an injection of humour from someone walking in unexpected and apologising.
In lesser hands these shift of tones would feel haphazard and jarring, but McDonagh somehow manages to keep it all tied together. It doesn't matter that a serious interaction is interrupted by humour (and vice versa), because everything shifts so quickly. For every line that makes you laugh ("Penelope said begets?"), there's a line that punches you in the gut ("I hope you get raped too"), and it just adds to the unpredictability of the story. There's never a moment that ends exactly the way you think it will.
Three Billboards is definitely a triumph of filmmaking. It's not perfect by any means (Abbie Cornish), but everything it does right, it really does right. Few movies will take you on as much of a rollercoaster as Three Billboards, and fewer still will drive that rollercoaster by characters as deep and interesting as Mildred, Dixon, Willoughby, Red, Robbie, James, and Charlie. The story, the music, the dialogue, the shifts in tone, the acting, the cinematography (that tracking shot, man), it's all fantastic. I give Three Billboards an unquestioning 9/10. What a start to 2018.