Best movie I've seen in decades!

Rating: 10/10 (2 September 2018)

As many of the other favorable reviews will testify, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri works well on the surface level as a drama. But there is much more to the story than that! This is a parable about the evil that is destroying America.
A small town in Missouri represents the heart of America. It's being ripped apart by a hatred born of an unidentified evil that has destroyed the life and future of Mildred Hayes. Meanwhile, in the words of Chief Willoughby, we are cowards who, instead of controlling our own destiny, watching silently as life "ebbs" away.
In the words of a naive minor character, "Hate begets more hate!" And the hate is personified by a Flannery O'Connor-type character, similar to the Satanic villain in her story "A Good Man is Hard to Find" (which Red Welby is reading when we meet him in the billboard rental office).
Deputy Jason (not Mason!) Dixon has marinated in the racial anger of the Old South. He explodes in violence when he senses that the death of his mentor and protector spells the end of his white privilege. Willoughby's replacement is a black man, alienating Dixon even more and resulting in his being fired. But one line in a Chief Willoughby letter changes Dixon: he has to learn to love, because loving makes one slow down. And even though the new police chief trusts in a system that conspires to protect the Devil, Dixon senses that evil must be confronted.
The old South is burned down, and the "Missouri rabbit" has been destroyed. Finally Dixon's newly discovered ability for "slow and steady" analysis, while his mother's tortoise settles into her lap, lets him recognize the Devil and form an alliance to identify and stop him.