Seriously? What do people see in this?

Rating: 2/10 (9 January 2018)

There have been plenty of times when I've been annoyed by what was presumed to be the frontrunner at the Oscars and the Golden Globes. So often, the movie that wins Best Picture and sweeps the other categories is something that I consider overrated or cheesy or simply not as good as some of the other movies I enjoyed from that year. In all of those cases, I can at least put aside my frustration and disappointment and understand what it is about the movie that's connecting with other people, or I can appreciate why it was entertaining or moving to audiences even if it wasn't quite my thing. In all the years I've been paying attention to movies, not once has a movie like this come along--a critical darling, an awards frontrunner, a box office smash, and an IMDb user hit that I find to be thoroughly awful nearly to the point of offensiveness. My friends who have seen the movie feel similarly. I honestly cannot discern a single reason for why this movie is being lauded.
What's astounding about this fact is that I actually love most of the people in the cast. Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Lucas Hedges, Caleb Landry Jones, Peter Dinklage, John Hawkes, Clarke Peters--these actors are phenomenal in almost every other thing I've ever seen them in. In this movie, they do the best with what's been given them--and Harrelson and Landry Jones almost even come out on top--but the lines they've been given to read are so artificial and inhuman, the situations they've been put into are so false and baffling, that it's impossible to imagine that any of these characters are existing in any kind of stable reality.
And look, it's not like I need overly naturalistic realism in all my movies. In Bruges, also by McDonagh, took place in a bizarre, surrealistic kind of universe, but at least its weirdness seemed consistent and self-contained. It established a convincing over-the-top world and then allowed a clever story to unfold within it. I didn't enjoy Seven Psychopaths nearly as much--in fact, I found its meta story to be quite pretentious and not nearly as intelligent as it thought it was--but at least that movie, too, seemed to be playing by its own established rules. What are the rules of Ebbing, Missouri? Is it supposed to have any intersection with the America I live in? Or is it supposed to be absurdist through and through, simply an excuse for unbelievable violence and offensive punchlines?
Because it doesn't seem that way. It seems like McDonagh wants us to believe that this movie has a lot to say about what really matters in America. It so frequently mentions things like racism, police brutality, domestic abuse, and sexual assault that it seems like surely it must have something to say about these issues. But instead, it might as well just be posting hashtags across the bottom of the screen. It has as much to do with female empowerment and combating racism as a typical round of Cards Against Humanity.
In the early scenes of the movie, I found myself wondering if it was supposed to be set in the mid-nineties. The way characters tossed around words like re**ded and n****r seemed dated and backwards, yet the apparent self-consciousness with which they used these words made it seem like it was taking place in the present day. Bad writing, I thought, like when a period picture uses a word like "nerd" twenty years before it was even coined. But then I realized that this was supposed to be the present day. So why do the characters sound so bizarrely out of place and time? Is it because McDonagh thinks all people from middle America are backwards and ignorant? When Rockwell and McDormand argue about "n****r torturing" vs. "people of color torturing," what the hell is the punchline there? What's the satirical target? Who's the intended audience? Is it supposed to be intelligent elites who understand identity politics and enjoy laughing at the clumsiness of people who aren't quite up to speed? I just don't see why this scene exists or what it's supposed to evoke from me, especially when it seems ultimately irrelevant to the plot of the movie.
Is it really necessary for the movie to so casually evoke police brutality and torture? There's not really a single meaningful non-white character in the entire movie, and the trajectories of the plot and the character development don't really have anything to do with that. Is simply mentioning it sufficient to feel as though something is being done about it? One of the most well-directed scenes in the movie is when Rockwell sends an innocent, unarmed man to the hospital while in uniform in broad daylight on a crowded main street. But the immediate aftermath of this horrifying moment is that we follow this character and we're supposed to root for him and appreciate his decency even though he's done practically nothing to deserve such empathy. Look, I'm not opposed to anti-heroes or to trying to understand and forgive the prejudices of racists. My entire family is full of racists, many of whom I love. But this screenplay doesn't put any real work into doing anything meaningful whatsoever with this character. Rockwell's character is a cartoon--far more bumbling and stupid and unaware than the many actual racist people I've known in my life. His actions are likewise far more dangerous and reckless than the actions of anyone I've known in my life. And yet by the end of the movie he's essentially taken center stage as the protagonist and hero.
Is that the point of the movie? What message are we supposed to get from McDormand, who barks a bunch of curse words that I guess are supposed to be hilarious because they're coming from the mouth of a middle aged woman? When Dinklage's character humbly shames her for friendzoning him and not smiling enough--is that the moral of the story? Is her assault on two random, presumably innocent teenagers supposed to be rousing? Are we supposed to applaud her fascist vigilantism, a la Dirty Harry, or are we supposed to be critical of the violent cycle of revenge that she's initiating, or are we just supposed to shut off our critical faculties completely and enjoy the flashiness and the silliness and the midgets and explosions?
Ultimately, that seems to be McDonagh's point--to make a trashy bit of popcorn. And yet because he happens to drop a few resonant keywords like "people of color" and "patriarchy," audiences seem to be convinced that something really insightful is unfolding before them. The slightest pause of consideration produces a thousand nagging questions, however. For instance, why would McDormand's character be so willing to knee-punch teenagers, yet cower whenever a man comes to her admitting to be her daughter's murderer? Why would the town priest let her ramble on for two pages of insulting, nonsensical monologue? Wouldn't he interrupt her or just get up and leave? Even the part of the movie that evoked one of the only laughs from me doesn't actually make any sense. Sure it's funny that Sheriff Willoughby was the secret savior who paid for the second month of McDormand's unrealistically expensive billboards, but if he's really planning on killing himself and leaving behind a young wife and two young children, would he really be throwing away five thousand dollars like that? I'd be pretty furious if I were his wife.
I don't mind popcorn. I don't mind violence in movies. I thoroughly enjoyed John Wick Chapter 2 despite being opposed to gun violence. But John Wick Chapter 2 never preached to me about the most pertinent issues of contemporary American life using nothing but bluster and empty catch phrases, and as far as I know, no audience member thought that such bluster was topically relevant and deeply moving. So why do people think Three Billboards is anything other than curse words and cartoon violence?