Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is kind of brilliant. It is a dark story of a woman's deep, unrelenting rage about the murder of her daughter and the effects of her blind determination. The focus of her ire is the police chief who never found the murderer and she puts up stark, menacing billboards on a town road that call him out.

This seems like it's going to go in a creepy direction of searching for serial murderers or something. Instead it draws out many of the characters in this small town in surprising ways. I thought maybe it was going to show the mean small-mindedness of them. But instead it shows a great deal of compassion for everyone. Almost all of them, especially France's McDormand's Mildred, have unattractive harsh sides to them, yet almost all of them are shown as suffering, and pretty much all of them show kindness and sympathy for others. The solid heart of the movie is Woody Harrelson who plays the police chief with humility and dignity.

There is violence. And there is a sense of dread and potential violence in most of the scenes. But the director manages to mix this lurking sadism with humor. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is extremely funny. The awkward dialogue, the little tricks of facial expression, the unexpected edges of the characters are all hysterical. In the end this is a very heartwarming movie.