THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING MISOURI: ABSOLUTE GOLD

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a Crime Drama written, directed, and co-produced by Martin McDonagh, and stars Frances McDormand as a Missouri woman who rents three roadside billboards to draw attention to her daughter's unsolved rape and murder. Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, John Hawkes, Peter Dinklage, Abbie Cornish, Lucas Hedges, Željko Ivanek, and Caleb Landry Jones appear in supporting roles. The film was theatrically released in the United States in November of 2017 by Fox Searchlight Pictures, and it grossed $160 million at the worldwide box office off of a $15 million budget.

Critical reception for the film was highly positive, with McDormand and Rockwell each winning an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a SAG Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Critics' Choice Award for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. Woody Harrelson received an Oscar, SAG, and BAFTA nomination. McDonagh won the Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award for his screenplay, and the film won the Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award for Best Picture.

The movie currently has an impressive 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an Audience Score of 87%. It also has a Metascore of 88 (based on 50 critic reviews) on Metacritic, with a User Score of 7.8, and an 8.1/10 on IMDB (based on 523,000 reviews).

I have to say, this film was absolutely fantastic from start to finish; the kind of film that even a person who doesn’t typically like Indie Films can appreciate. It’s a film that smartly thumbs its nose at the seemingly constant Hollywood adage that anger is something that needs to be cured. Instead, this film, and by extension, it’s main character, stews in its anger, to the point of seeking retribution for a perceived transgression. And by the time the film is over, we realize that, it’s through the main character’s rage, that other emotions like empathy and understanding are able to be found.

The casting in this film was great. In fact, this movie boasts one of the most ridiculously talented supporting casts I’ve seen in quite some time. As a byproduct, the acting was amazing, and the writing and directing by McDonagh was superb. Three Billboards is a film that deals with some heavy themes. It’s a film about grief that gives way to violence and vengeance, but even with all of that, it still manages not to take itself too seriously. And in a world where so many people exercise selective outrage and deal unapologetically in moral absolutes, I think McDonagh makes a real attempt to explore the complexity of the human condition while appearing to avoid taking a side, which I absolutely love.

In short, this film isn’t afraid to piss people off on the way to making its point, which is what I like about it most. You can watch Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri on HULU or Sling TV with a paid subscription. It’s also available to purchase on Apple TV ($14.99) and to rent on YouTube, Redbox, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play Movies and Vudu ($3.99). You can also find it for free on cable On Demand (FXNow).