Review of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) by Jim T — 12 Feb 2018

Not for the faint of heart or those who want their violence and anger served up as Marvel or D.C. revenge and explosions, war or in a horror movie. NO, the violence in "Three Billboards" clearly reflects seething anger and rage.

As the movie unfolds it opens up in to the pain, the all consuming pain seemingly that pervades this fictional southern town. Ebbing is a setting, a myth or archetype of a place where decent people fade in to the background, barely noticed by the bitter denizens of this mythical location.

The angry dominate the foreground, while intriguing multi-dimensional characters, get ignored, beaten or harm themselves. The movie is engrossing. The dialogue is taut and the acting is superb throughout.

If you want to bask in existential sorrow with humans desperate for connection but unable to find it, those tossed to the purgatory of regret, of opportunity missed in relationship and profound, unbearable regret, this is your film.

It is powerful, poignant and you will leave with a distinct experience, a take on the film, stirred up and even a bit befuddled. No clean endings, no clear hero or villain except the unknown assailant who committed the atrocity proclaimed on those 3 billboards.

The billboards, they stand like the trinity crying out for something holy, and like a Springsteen song announcing that this is a town for losers, and as a last ditch effort for a mother to find salvation from her own family failings.

I recommend the film without hesitation.