Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Director Martin McDonagh delivered a massive punch to the gut back in 2017 with this incredibly dark and violent comedy about a mother seeking justice. You watch Frances McDormand give a terrifyingly raw performance as Mildred Hayes, a woman who rents three abandoned billboards to publicly shame the local police department for failing to solve the murder of her daughter. We also get Woody Harrelson as the respected but terminally ill police chief Bill Willoughby and Sam Rockwell playing a racist and violent deputy named Jason Dixon. I always recommend this movie to my friends because it completely destroys the traditional idea of clear good guys and bad guys. The story drops you right into a small midwestern town boiling over with quiet rage and deep secrets. A closer look beneath the crude jokes and sudden violence reveals a surprisingly touching story about forgiveness. A structural analysis shows that every violent outburst from the grieving mother mirrors the total helplessness she feels inside.

Cinematographer Ben Davis shoots the rural landscape to look both beautiful and completely oppressive at the same time. You immediately notice how the bright red color of the billboards aggressively clashes with the quiet and foggy green hills of the Missouri countryside. I do get a little annoyed when the camera uses shaky handheld movements during the sudden bar fights. The jerky motion makes those violent moments feel a bit too chaotic instead of properly grounded in the emotional stakes. A quick return to the wide static shots of the empty country roads thankfully restores a much better visual peace. The costume department gives Mildred a dark blue mechanic jumpsuit that she wears like a literal suit of armor to completely separate herself from the polite society around her.

Pay attention to the set design and you will see how the physical buildings completely reflect the decay of the local community. The messy interior of the local police station feels very authentic because the peeling paint and cluttered desks match a department stuck in the past. A trip over to the Hayes family home offers a totally different vibe entirely. The dark rooms and empty spaces look like a quiet museum dedicated strictly to the memory of a dead child. My main complaint involves the local advertising office located right across the street from the police station. The convenient placement looks a bit too perfect and theatrical for a movie that tries so hard to feel like a random real town. The choice to put these angry characters in tiny local bars forces a natural tension that jumps right off the screen.

You really have to listen to the acoustic guitar soundtrack to understand the melancholy heartbeat of this movie. My ears constantly catch the beautiful and sad folk melodies composed by Carter Burwell right before a major act of violence erupts. The editing moves at a very deliberate pace to give the actors plenty of time to deliver those famous profanity filled monologues perfectly. We hear the loud crack of a thrown glass bottle constantly interrupting quiet emotional conversations. The sudden absolute silence when a character reads a private letter actually makes the emotional weight feel terrifyingly real.

Let us clear up some common mysteries about this dark crime comedy.

- Is Ebbing a real town in Missouri? No, the town is completely fictional, and the production crew actually filmed the entire movie in the small mountain town of Sylva, North Carolina.

- Did Frances McDormand want to reject the role? Yes, she initially felt she was too old to play the mother of a teenager, but her husband convinced her to take the part that eventually won her an Academy Award.

- Are the billboards still standing today? The production team built the giant signs specifically for the movie and tore them down immediately after filming finished to restore the local pasture.

The incredible acting and the razor sharp script keep me coming back, but I cannot deny that the redemption arc for certain bad characters feels a bit rushed. Certain changes in personality happen so quickly at the end that you almost lose your connection to the terrible things those characters did earlier.

Fans of dark dramas will definitely love finding the hidden visual details in this sleepy mountain town. If you think you have the eye to spot the hidden clues in our daily movie guessing game or just want a fun movie wordle to play on your break, test your skills at Flickle. You can also challenge your friends with our trivia game to prove your ultimate cinema knowledge.