Movie review: Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

I have been wanting to combine two of my love interests, movie and writing, and what a movie to start reviewing with. This is surely one of those you haven’t seen before, the characters are going to stir up your definitions of the black and the white, their emotions going to leave you raw. The story is about the mother of a rape and dead victim, Midred. She is angry, full of rage, hates one and all, and none of what she does is anywhere close of being a typical victim. She rents three billboards to bring into public light, the yet open and unsolved case of her daughter, with the hope of longing justice. The police chief (Willoubhy) who for whatever reason gets to take the bashes of these billboards, is one respected by the whole town and is a cancer patient living off his last days. The victim is all you’d want to hate (and not hate at the same time) and the accountable will take away all your empathy, and, this is a fresh, interesting and brave prospective attempted by the writer, Martin McDonagh, as pointed out in one of the dialogues in the movie, “how the whole town supports you for the case of Angela (the rape victim), no one does in the case of billboards”. Adding to the cast, is the supporting character of Dixon, subordinate to Willoubhy, that comes as the shining element of the pack, and every time he makes a screen presence with his own set of “Mommy says” and a weird and rare sense of charm you’d probably associate with violence, you’d want to see him more. The crisp screenplay keeps you glued to each scene, and more than often sweeps you off with a twist you’d hardly expect, and that with the interestingly placed Oscar nominated score by Carter Burwell is a delight to watch. The characters, who are all each going through a lot within, never fail to surprise you with the next set of actions they take, and by the time you’ve reached mid-way through the movie, you are convinced of the unpredictability of humanity that is agitated with emotions of that kind. What I particularly enjoyed about the movie were the very few conversations, and going beyond, that unsaid relation shared between Midred and Willoubhy, or Dixon, where each do understand the other, but are constrained by their own limitations that reason them for their course of unfavourable action they take towards each other. The movie, in parts, will be rough enough to digest, but that’s been smartly dealt with humor, a thing, which again, you wouldn’t expect coming from a movie about a rape victim. Dialogues are heart felt, especially the one where Midred talks about "how a day of false hope was still better than having none". The ending couldn’t have been better, you catch a glimpse of that angry woman smiling for once in the movie, even though it’s not the best she’s been hoping for. Having watched the movie in two shifts, it still couldn’t help me much in taking away all that the movie’s got to offer. A story about hope and vengeance served in a totally fresh perspective. Watch this if you are up for something you’ll remember for years!