You think it's about chutzpah, but it's about heartbreak

Rating: 9/10 (11 January 2018)

On a drive through the American South some years ago, British writer-director Martin McDonagh saw a set of billboards that challenged the authorities similar to the way the sheriff of Ebbing, Missouri, is challenged in this film. The rage they embodied stayed with him, and although this film is billed as a black comedy, don't go looking for belly laughs. Its true subject is heartbreak.
With an intelligent script that's perhaps a few minutes too long, McDonagh's characters' actions impinge on others like billiard balls knocking about on the table. Mildred Hayes (played by Frances McDormand-a genius at portraying tough, uncompromising women) intends for her actions to affect others when she pays for three billboards to be pasted up on a remote stretch of road outside town, blood red and anger-filled: "Raped While Dying. And Still No Arrests? How Come, Sheriff Willoughby?" Guilt and anger are written just as clearly on her unsmiling face.
The sheriff's deputies, accustomed to have their way in all local matters, great and small, are offended. They want her to take them down. Of course she won't. One of them, Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell) is an overgrown boy, prey to his every violent whim and McDonagh gives him a complex character arc.
Sheriff Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) has other troubles on his mind and, while it's true he hasn't made progress in solving Angela Hayes's murder, it isn't true that he hasn't tried. Although his place in their world is the slipperiest, he has the best sense of what that place is.
Several supporting roles are equally powerful (I especially liked Mildred's ex-husband's new girlfriend), and there are some laughs-people being their natural selves can be hilarious, usually without meaning to be. Though a broken heart manifests itself differently in all three main characters, it's Sheriff Willoughby who points the way to healing. Already the film has received numerous awards and nominations, including the Golden Globe for best motion picture drama, with Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, and Martin McDonagh (screenplay) winners too.