Ode to love

Rating: Null/10 (21 January 2018)

With all the reviews etc. gleaned prior to watching this film, I was still surprised, many times, absolutely delightfully.
The opening background score is immediately captivating, a heart-rending rendition of "The last rose of summer". Later, it is employed once more, serving as the background music to the most stunning scene in the entire film. Together with the hauntingly mesmerizing soprano as background, the story-telling and emotion-spilling montages are devastating. Devastation that will guarantee to be the most treasured cinematic moment you have ever experienced.
Because of the devilishly clever plot, I'll have to stop outlining it at about the midpoint, after which you will be delighted again and again by twists and turns that you have not anticipated, or have anticipated but turn out a little differently. I like to borrow something I read about Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado":
(quote) The plot is so ingeniously devised that it runs smoothly as a well-oiled machine; so smoothly, indeed, that its cleverness in construction tends to be overlooked. Of no other work can it be aptly said that "one thing leads to another" (end quote)
Almost a year has gone by and Mildred's (Frances McDormand) daughter's murder remains unsolved. She rents three billboards on a desolate highway, posting "Raped While Dying", "And Still No Arrest", "How Come, Chief Willoughby?". The challenged Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) is named for only one reason: "the buck stops at the top". He is, offbeat sarcasm notwithstanding, a most decent law enforcing officer. As well, he has been given only a few more months to live, at the terminal stage of his cancer. His loving wife Anne (Abbie Cornish) is facing this predicament with courage, trying to make his last days with their two lovely pre-teen daughters cheerful. Mildred's anger is really against some of Willoughby's lazy and racist staffs, personified in Dixon (Sam Rockwell). After divorce, Mildred lives with her son Robbie (Lucas Hedges) and daughter, now murdered. Ex-husband Charlie (John Hawkers) has taken up a 19-year old girlfriend Penelope (Samara Weaving). There are quite a few more characters, the most noticeable of which, in term of the actor, is Peter Dinklage as the town's maybe only dwarf inhabitant. I'll stop here.
One of the most remarkable things about this film is that there are no clear heroes or villains - almost everybody is flawed and, at the same time, has redeeming qualities. Characters develop and evolve throughout the film, oscillating between earning your disgust and your sympathy, very much like characters in The Game of Thrones. Another good example is Thomas Barrow (an under-butler?) in Downton Abbey. You wouldn't have thought that someone you so despise at Season 1 would have you rooting for so whole-heartedly in the final season, six years later. "Three Billboards" achieves that effect for Dixon within a timespan of two hours.
Without giving away all the spoilers, there is not much that I can elaborate on to stress how brilliantly the characters are written to interact and bring out the complex but realistic relationship of anger, hate, love, redemption. The brilliance is in using dark humor rather than manipulative tear-jerkers. The Coen brothers could not have done it better than director Martin McDonagh here. In one scene a character that had been beaten up badly is show in hospital bed wrapped up like a half-mummy, "half" because his face is still recognizable and he can still move around, even if limping and with only one arm mobile. Then, another patient is rolled into the room, a complete mummy this time and the nurse says to introduce the new roommate "Burnt victim, heavily sedated". After the nurse left, he brings over a juice (in a glass, with straw) to try to comfort his new roommate the burnt victim, who is still conscious and, staring out of the two holes in the bandages that completely covers his face, repeatedly says "I'm sorry". It takes a while for the first patience to realize that the burnt victim is the guy who savagely beat him up less than 24 hours ago. The expression on his face alone (half exposed face) is good enough for an Oscar, and this is just a minor character. Torn between hate and sympathy, he finally brings the juice to the burn victim's bed. The final shot in this scene says so much with so little - after a little hesitation, he carefully turns the straw in the glass around so that the burnt victim can reach it more easily. There are such top-notch scenes aplenty.
Frances McDormand's Mildred in all likelihood will win her as many film awards as Gary Oldman's Churchill. Hard-as-nail does not even being to describe one layer of her character. And yet, look at this very early scene in the office where she is renting the billboards, which shows an insect on its back, struggling. Later, we see Mildred nonchalantly flipping it over, saving its life - another layer of her character. But there are many more, and McDormand brings them all out, without the slightest trace of acting.
Woody Harrelson is having a good year, in "The glass castle", then in this film, with a performance that will have you laugh out loud and break your heart, at the same time. As mentioned, Sam Rockwell won Golden Globe best support, but Harrelson is equally deserving. Rockwell's advantage is in that his type of explosive character registers more easily with audience. I would be really disappointed if Oscar does not recognize both of them with nominations as BAFTA has done.
Of the entire solid support cast, several deserve a special mention. Abbie Cornish, if I am allowed to quote Muhammad Ali's self-assessment, is not just a pretty face. She has amply demonstrated her versality in the variety of roles in Bright Star (still considered by many as her signature work) and Seven Psychopaths (another of Director McDonagh's widely acclaimed work). Here her portrayal of the loving wife and mother who is about to lose her husband rises above banal sentimentality. Truly heartbreaking. Lucas Hedges, at 20, was recognized by Oscar with a best supporting nomination in "Manchester by the sea". Here, playing Mildred's son who has survived growing up in a defunct family with toughness and a dark sense of humor, he has some wickedly offbeat scenes with McDormand. Another Oscar nominee John Hawkes (in "Winter's Bones", the movie that provides the first step for Jennifer Lawrence stardom) plays Mildred's ex-husband, with malice but no exaggeration. Already mentioned is Peter Dinklage whose attentive, measured performance of James the town dwarf whose small part plays a pivotal role in plot development. Interestingly the character that is pure goodness is the clueless 19-year old girlfriend Penelope played lovingly by Samara Weaving.
Ultimately, despite everything, this film is about love. Discover it in one of the three letters written by one of the key characters in the film.