Disclaimer: As award season is upon us, I wanted to take time to discuss the intricacies of the movies that have been selected for best picture. The following article contains spoilers and assumes you have already seen the movie. Additionally, this is not about whether the movie was good or bad, or if it deserves the Oscar or not. This is more concerning what the film is about and what it is trying to communicate to the audience.
There is a scene in the final act of the film where Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) is sitting in front of her billboards, planting flowers. A deer walks near her and looks at her with a sense of naivety and childlike ignorance to the pain that she is in. “Yup, still no arrests. How come I wonder?” She says speaking to the deer but really to herself. “Cause there ain’t no God and the whole world’s empty, and it doesn’t matter what we do to each other?”
If I had to take the whole two-hour experience of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and boil it down to one line, that would be the line. Martin McDonagh’s black comedy presents a cast of characters who are all capable of doing terrible things in the name of justice and yet for all their efforts no justice is received. Angela’s brutal murder and rape leads her mother Mildred Hayes to buy a set of three billboards on a rural country rode outside of the town of Ebbing reading:
“RAPED WHILE DYING”
“AND STILL NO ARRESTS?”
“HOW COME, CHIEF WILLOUGHBY?”
Mildred’s motivation is in part to bring attention to the fact that seven months have past since her daughter’s murder and still no progress has been made in solving the case. But perhaps the stronger motivation underlying Mildred’s action is her burning anger and the blame she places on the local police for not bringing justice to her daughter’s killer. It is both a tool to spur action and also an instrument to funnel her grief into the community around her. Robbie (Lucas Hedges), Mildred’s son, wishes only to move on from the loss of his sister. Every time he drives home with Mildred, he is forced to relive the terrible things that happened to his sister on that night. Every time he goes past those billboards, he is reminded of that pain. In this way, the billboards are in some ways cathartic for Mildred. At the outset of the film, the billboards are a reflection of a black hole of grief left festering in Mildred’s soul, and the gravitational force of that pain reverberates into the community of Ebbing. She tries to release her anger at the people she blames, while unintentionally forcing those around her to be a part of that same pain. Perhaps in Mildred’s mind this is justified, but she is also so blinded by her rage that she fails to show any understanding or remorse for the people who are in fact trying to help her.
Case in point is the subject the billboards are directed at in Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson). Willoughby comes to Mildred after hearing about the billboards and tries to reason with her. He explains that the police force did everything they could in the investigation and that there simply was no further leads to pursue. He displays an honesty and desire to bring justice to Angela’s killer, but this honesty is dismissed by Mildred as acquiescence and laziness. Willoughby further pleads with Mildred to take the billboards down as he believes he has done his absolute best to solve the case and they have placed undo blame. He states to Mildred that he is in fact dying of cancer and he does not have long to live. Mildred knew. She put the signs up anyway.
While Chief Willoughby at first seems to be the most ethical character of the film, his actions are also morally ambiguous. He attempts to run a police force with integrity, while quietly tolerating racism, bigotry and the abuse of the law amongst his police force. Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell) has a clear history of violence, alcohol abuse, and racism. It is alluded to that he ruthlessly beat a black resident of the town before the events of the film and yet he seems to be unpunished for his actions. While Willoughby may have done his best to solve the case of Angela’s death, he seems incapable of bringing justice to his town. He sees the anger and hatred within Mildred and Dixon and sees also in them good people. He sees individuals who are victims of their circumstances. However, Willoughby’s trust and forgiveness lead in many ways to the violent assault of Red Welby (Caleb Landry Jones) at the hands of officer Dixon. It isn’t until after Willoughby’s death and a brutal assault that Dixon is relieved of his badge and gun.
Yet Willoughby’s death is in and of itself an instance of an unjust world. His cancer diagnosis is yet another example of how tragedy strikes, and it is beyond anyone’s control. Instead of fighting through the disease, Willoughby takes his own life after one final day with his family. He leaves behind a wife and two daughters, along with several suicide notes to people in the community tied up in the events spurred by the billboards. He writes to Mildred to tell her that the billboards had nothing to do with his death and admits that he even thinks they were an incredible idea. He paid to keep them up for another month just to make her miserable as the town’s people turn against her, believing that they lead to Willoughby’s death. In another suicide note to Dixon, he acknowledges the hatred in Dixon’s heart and hopes that he can let go of those biases to become a detective. It is perhaps these words that inspire Dixon to save Angela’s case file from the fire and to attempt to bring Angela’s potential killer to justice.
Yet despite the turn in Dixon’s character, it seems that it is for not. Justice is not brought to Ebbing, Missouri. The man Dixon believes to be the killer is not guilty of Angela’s murder. Dixon is left disfigured from the fire Mildred starts at the police station under the false pretense that the police burned the billboards. James (Peter Dinklage) is left used and jilted by Mildred after offering her an alibi for her crime. Red finds himself in the hospital maimed after Dixon’s brutal assault, while Dixon is never truly brought to justice. Robbie finds himself further removed from his mother in his time of grief. Mildred has punctured a whole in the thumb of the town dentist and was never charged with a crime.
But while the plot of the first two acts is marred by misfortune and unfairness, what makes the tragedy even more poignant and effective is McDonagh’s use of timing and comedy to make these events seem even more heartbreaking. What’s more, McDonagh often reverses the Shakespearean maneuver. Instead of presenting something comedic to make the tragic events that follow feel more powerful and sad (i.e. the gravedigger scene in Hamlet), McDonagh often presents a moment of terrible tragedy and then immediately follows with something comedic. The effect seems to highlight the hollowness within the characters and in some ways reinforces the film’s underlying tropes. In Ebbing, Missouri there is no God, the whole world is empty and it doesn’t matter what they do to one another. The only defense these characters can muster in the depth of that despair, is to laugh in the face of that notion as the only antidote to the pain and anger they must feel.
Yet with the laughter and the tragedy that befalls the residents of Ebbing, Missouri, the billboards take on new meaning for Mildred and for the community. The billboards are burnt down and rebuilt, and with it, the billboards are seen in a new light. The writing might be the same, but the message is somehow different. Instead of being an instrument of vengeance, they are now about healing. Instead of pulling people into Mildred’s world of grief, they are about pulling her out of it and learning to find peace and acceptance within herself. Returning to Mildred talking to the deer, planting her flowers by the rebuilt billboards, she answers her own question, “I hope not. How come you came up here out of nowhere lookin’ so pretty? You ain’t trynta make me believe in reincarnation or somethin’ are ya? Cause you’re pretty but you ain’t her. She got killed. Now she’s dead forever.”
With several months to critique and find flaws in every movie nominated for the Academy Award, inevitably politics and twitter trends start to influence the perception of these films, whether rightly or not. Dixon’s racist character has become a cause of ire for many. Wesley Morris of the New York Times raised this point and many others, arguing that the film simply plays around with America’s “ideological and geographical toys”. While the film does take moments to poke fun at such politically poignant topics such as political correctness (the “person-of-color” interrogation scene as an example), these political topics are only employed in an ironic manner. The film at no point seems designed to take on the burden of judging and tackling these issues head on. It could be valid to say that the film did not do an encapsulating job of discussing these subjects. But that would be a fairer criticism if that was ultimately the aim and message of the film. The characters each might believe in their own set of paradoxical ideas that on the surface represent topics of current social discussion in America. But that seems to be only a minor tool that drives part of the film’s moments of comedy, not a major rhetorical device to hammer home a politically driven message to the audience. Certainly, Dixon’s racism and care for political correctness are contradictory but this is just one of many flaws in his character. He believes himself to be a righteous enforcer of the law while willfully disregarding the law. He is supposed to be a purveyor of peace within the community while constantly resorting to violence. He is supposed to be perceived as a mature member of the community as a police officer, yet he acts with the maturity of a child. To hone in on only one of these hypocrisy’s is perhaps too reductionist of an understanding of the film.
It is further evident that Mildred and Dixon are by no means shining beacons of morality. Other critiques have been that the movie offers redemption for these characters, who are left traveling on their way to Idaho debating if they should kill a man they think is guilty of rape and murder. However, I do not see any offer of redemption. While at the beginning we might cheer for Mildred and her cause, I began to understand that she is not necessarily the hero in this movie. There are no heroes in this movie. Mildred and Dixon are conflicted about their cause. They have no proof that the man they are on the way to kill is guilty of anything. They aren’t even sure if killing him would be the right thing to do. Perhaps underlying their reservations is the knowledge that none of the violent things these characters have committed has brought them justice, and therefore they have no justice to offer.
The film in the end is not about the moral redemption of Mildred nor Dixon nor anyone for that matter. It is not offering you the flaws of the characters and convincing you to like them despite the crimes they have committed. It is instead wondering if in the face of all this tragedy and hatred, can these characters truly forgive each other and find peace within themselves. As Mildred and Dixon are left to ponder that question in the car on the way to Idaho, they must wrestle with the notion that violence begets only more pain and violence. They must come to terms with the fact that killing this man, no matter how evil or guilty, won’t bring Angela back. It won’t redeem Dixon from the terrible things he has done in the past. It won’t quell his hatred nor soften his bigotry. The events that transpired in Ebbing, Missouri cannot be undone, and justice will not be brought to those who deserve it. Ultimately, the question the characters of Ebbing are left with is, can they find a way to forgive?
