Wasn't quite convinced

Rating: 6/10 (9 February 2018)

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri stars Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Caleb Landry Jones, Abbie Cornish, Lucas Hedges and Peter Dinklage, and is directed by Martin McDonagh, who brought us the sensational In Bruges, and Seven Psychopaths.
It tells the story of Mildred Hayes, played by McDormand, who some time ago, her teenage daughter was to quote the film, "raped while dying", in small town Ebbing in the mid-west of the USA. The local police and authorities, Chief Willoughby and Dixon, played by Harrelson and Rockwell, at least in Mildred's eyes, aren't pulling their weight in avenging and bringing to justice her daughter's perpetrator. So she takes the liberty of erecting three billboards outside the town, bought and paid for through Red, played by Landry Jones, to raise awareness of her daughter's death. However these billboards stir up some controversy within the town.
Now I'm just gonna come clean here and say that I wasn't a huge fan of this film, but I'll address the positives first. Absolutely top notch acting, Frances McDormand brings serious bite and something really scathing, and I definitely think it's one of the best performances of the year, possibly the best of her career. Woody Harrelson, to an extent, brings real humanity to the role, not to get into spoilers, but there's a scene where he approaches Mildred about the billboards for the first time, and there's a big reveal of his character and what he's going through, and Mildred's searing comments on this reveal, and Willoughby's reaction to said comments was top tier acting. In a single shot, and in his expression, you really saw tragedy, heartbreak and a sense of pity for Mildred, completely brought by Harrelson's fantastic performance. Then you have Dixon, played by Sam Rockwell, whose character, like Willoughby, goes through some VERY unpredictable directions, at the start he's a bigoted, ignorant, racist buffoon red neck, and by the end he still kinda is, but many many more things as well, which was completely unexpected. I think Rockwell was the big standout of the film. It's an example of with certain screenwriting, you can have a character's arc and morals go completely up, down, sideways, backwards, in circles and inside out, and I was amazed by where he went just as a character, so credit to him and McDonagh's accomplished writing.
The editing is right on point too, there's scenes where Harrelson's character is reading letters that he wrote, and the way the structure of shots goes back in time, forward in time etc, as he's narrating these letters, and just the shot structure and lengths for scenes throughout the film is pretty brilliant.
Ultimately however, I just wasn't that convinced by this movie as a whole, Harrelson's character makes a big ol decision midway, that was meant to be SHOCKING and devastating, but there just wasn't any build up to it, so it just kinda happened unexpectedly and suddenly, that my reaction was more just "Oooookay?!?!?" than what it was meant to be. Dixon's character also makes a big decision upon what happens with Willoughby, and it just felt completely out of left field and unconvincing, even for a crazy bastard like him....
So it was two BIG scenes that just didn't click for me. The film is also SO unrelentingly sardonic, mean spirited, depressing and angry that it just left me feeling... kinda nauseous. I've definitely never been one to just be like "well that movie wasn't happy-happy joy-joy and didn't make me feel good and nice, therefore I hate it", but there's just no end, no opposition and no upside to the bitterness that it just felt like "misery porn" interlaced with quirky, off-beat humour, and it just didn't sit well with me. But like I said the acting, directing, certain aspects of the character and writing, and editing is all phenomenal. But you just can't have a movie where characters just DO things without adequate motivation, build up or reasoning behind it, and for me at least those things weren't adequate enough to be convincing.