How do you solve a problem like Mildred

Rating: Null/10 (26 November 2017)

Martin McDonagh, the writer and director of "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri", has spun a tale that is billed as a dark comedy. The plot is filled with holes and the writer seems so pleased with his own wit and worldview that he can't restrain himself. He created a world where feelings of one individual are the only thing that matter. His character Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) has no responsibility to her son or to her community. She has no responsibility to see other people as human beings with feelings. She doesn't have to take responsibility for her own actions because her daughter has been killed.
Frances McDormand gives a solid performance as the blunt, confrontational, mean-spirited Mildred Hayes. Woody Harrelson is in good form as Chief of Police William Willoughby. Sam Rockwell displays the strongest acting chops as Officer Dixon.
McDonagh introduces Mildred Hayes when she purchases billboards aimed to embarrass and shame the chief of police. It is here that we meet Mildred, the grieving. Who would not be sympathetic to a mother who's child had been kidnapped, raped, and murdered? Mildred knows as well as anyone that the police have been doing all that they can do. There is no physical evidence connecting a suspect to the crime. We meet Mildred, the irrational.
Mildred goes to the dentist and as he begins to explain that he thinks the billboards are unfair and cruel, meets Mildred, the batterer. Mildred's son knows Mildred, the child abuser, as he faces daily humiliation because of his mother's selfish and cruel daily actions in the small town. He never knows mom, the nurturer, teacher, care-giver, only Mildred.
The town later suffers the destruction of Mildred, the domestic terrorist, as she bombs the police station. We see flash-backs to Mildred, the bully, as she torments and teases her own children and sets them up to be on the receiving end of her jokes.
But wait, all is not lost. Mildred redeems herself at the end of the movie. She has second thoughts about committing murder and vigilante justice to an unknown man.