three billboards outside ebbing, missouri (w&d martin mcdonagh)

Martin McDonagh has always been a card. From the very start he’s loved to provoke and understood that nothing grabs an audience’s attention like a bit of well-placed, arguably gratuitous violence. Three Billboards feels like a move away from that territory towards something rather more Coen brothers, with Frances McDormand helming a diverse, ensemble cast. Although Mildred, McDormand’s character, is after revenge, this is as much a film about small-town USA as it is about retribution for the rape and murder of her daughter. That particular strand remains somewhat unconvincing, in spite of McDormand giving it all she’s got. The emotional realities of Mildred’s situation remain secondary to the delight the film takes in spiking Trumpian America. Sam Rockwell’s out and out racist cop, made to feel more than at home in the local police station, is the film’s boldest play. McDonagh isn’t afraid to come out with the fairly indisputable fact that it’s not uncommon to come across a racist policeman in the USA. The fact that Rockwell’s story is ultimately redemptive may have caused some controversy, but it’s refreshing to see a film have the honesty to confront a racism that Hollywood never normally recognises. Having said which, in spite of its critical plaudits, Seven Billboards feels like a bit of a pudding. It’s hard to see how you can construct a narrative around the issue of a violent rape and then play the movie for laughs. McDonagh might say that this kind of irreverence is an approach that has always served him well. However, In Bruges had a conceptual freedom which seemed to be more effective for the writer’s intellectual playfulness; whilst the (O)Irish plays functioned within a kind of mythical world of the author’s imagining, no matter how much that might have pissed off the Irish who had really lived and suffered the Troubles. Three Billboards threatens to deal with complex moral problems in a humorous fashion, but in the end it’s mostly humour and not much morality. Which makes for an entertaining if ultimately shallow ride.