By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Martin McDonagh
Cast: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, John Hawkes, Lucas Hedges, Abbie Cornish, Samara Weaving, Caleb Landry Jones, Zeljko Ivanek, Clarke Peters, Amanda Warren, Kerry Condon and Peter Dinklage.
Rating: Excellent.
Martin McDonagh, writer/director of “In Bruges” and “Seven Psycopaths” brings “Three Bilboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and again McDonagh delivers.
The movie tells the story of Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) a divorced mother who recently suffered the lost of their child Angela, who was raped and murdered.
Mildred´s anger grows and she expresses it through three billboards that shows the incompetence of the Police Department.
This will draw the attention of Sherriff Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) and Officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell) who were in charger of the investigaction that led to the failure on catching Angela´s culprit.
Mildred will receive threats and warning but she still resists and will defy the Police Department. Now she is more determined on taking the law on her hands and catching her daughter´s killer.
The element that made “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” was the originality of the story and the way how Martin McDonagh told it from Mildred´s point of view.
The screenplay by McDonagh was very original, powerful and full with very rich characters that you both cheer and hate at the same time.
In this film you see a lot of the humor from McDonagh´s previous films and at the same time you characters who are filled with anger, resentment and self guilt.
His direction is amazing not only visually but in terms of performance he knew how to get the best of his cast.
Frances McDormand as always she is amazing in this film and I would not be surprised to see her score an Academy Award Nomination in next year´s awards.
Other performance that I consider astonishing was Sam Rockwell who not only played a character that you hate in the film but has one of the most unexpected twists in the film.
The way how McDonagh mixed both the comedy and drama in this film works at all levels and he is one of the masters of mixing both dramas, which is very complicacted, specially when you are dealing with very complex characters.
The only problem that I saw in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” might be the ending.
I was expecting it to be more hard blowing but at the same I understood McDonagh´s approach.
I understand that it is very important to have your characters that have twists and here McDonagh did it very well.
Other than the ending of the film I was very pleased and Martin McDonagh directed his third film and made it even better than his previous two films.
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” is one of the year´s best films and I highly recommend it for the performances and Martin McDonagh´s screenplay and direction.