Brilliantly sad

Rating: 9/10 (10 January 2018)

Used to be, way back, billboards written and paid for by individuals might have read "War is over, if you want it" but these days these same billboards seem to yell "We're lost and there's no hope".
The acting in Three Billboards is phenomenal. Worth seeing the movie again and again to marvel at the craft of the actors lead by Frances McDormand. Truly a tour de force performance that reveals more nuance and perfection every time you watch it. Mildred must surely get an Oscar to bookend Marge Gunderson.
Photography is also very good, capturing the essence of the atmosphere. The Director seems inconsequential when the actors' craft and the photography reign above, making you forget you are watching a movie. Maybe that's my compliment to the Director.
But what is actually going on? What is the story? In the later part of the second decade of the 21st century, a vacant statement of a Dark Ages for the mind, the heart and the soul, of a humanity that's lost direction, purpose hope and sense of beauty.
Indeed, Mildred of Ebbing is Marge of Fargo, adjusted for a post 9-11 alienated and fearful society that aims for nothing, sees nothing and hopes for nothing to the point of drifting through life in a state of indecision and, well, clinical depression and disgust for other humans.
A brilliantly acted sad statement on what humanity has become.