Review of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) by Rene E — 10 Feb 2018
Dexterous writer-director Martin McDonagh never fails to find pitch-black comedy in the bleakest of premises, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, is no exception.
This peculiar picture charts the strategic exploits of a cranky single mother (Frances McDormand) as she tries to draw 14ft-high, 48ft-wide attention to the unsolved murder of her teenage daughter, x3.
The film takes place in a fictitious deadbeat town that's so deadbeat, it's presumably where echoes of unwanted beats come to die. This is a place populated by small men of dubious morals and intelligence, which include an amusing, bumbling Sam Rockwell and a sanctimonious Woody Harrelson in outlandish dumb cop, twat cop roles.
McDonagh has a whale of a time poking fun at these hapless, trigger-happy goons, but he never loses sight of the fact that a serious and somewhat grizzly tragedy sits at the centre of the film - not the murder, but the waning lives of Ebbing's miserable players.
Beneath the surface of an admittedly very thick, funny veneer of darkness is a series of tormented, confused souls who each get a chance to grapple with their own touching transformation, tragic misfortune, or both.
This review of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) was written by Rene E on 10 Feb 2018.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri has generally received very positive reviews.
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