Martin McDonagh
Tre Manifesti a Ebbing, Missouri

Nothing more to say, there's no need to explain the beauty of a film widely announced as an award winner. So it makes sense to start from what doesn't work, from the less oiled cogs of a grotesque mechanism that from the point of view of cinematic entertainment is truly almost unerring.

I blame the director and screenwriter McDonagh for one thing: not having the strength to carry through to the end the harshness of his social portrait. The black comedy dynamics prevail over the disenchanted look at today's America, and impose positive evolutions on characters otherwise hardly conceivable. And perhaps that is exactly why Three Billboards is much appreciated: it's an engaged film but not too much, it's tragic but not too much, it's political but not too much, it's dark but also consolatory. For me, this is not true “great cinema.” It is not a truly courageous film, it's actually very calculating.

It aims to be a deep reflection on the impossibility of achieving real, true justice (and in many parts it seems to be), but all in all, it resolves into a trivial philosophical issue, like: “Hate breeds more hate” and “You have to love to work peacefully.” These are little mice born from a highly commendable and truly fresh cinematic mountain, but actually harmless.

This is not to say that it isn't a solid film; it's excellent work, but it fails to reach the status of a truly uncomfortable, tough, genuinely political film. The vision of a clockwork justice that can take revenge when and how it wants, that can commit atrocities almost with impunity, is certainly important but there isn't a real substantial content on the theme. It's just one more ingredient in a buffet of easy polemics, extreme pain, crude jokes, and black humor. A stylistically certainly remarkable, delightful intertwining, but in the end, very comfortable, because it actually stings everyone without moving the situation an inch, without saying anything new.

It's easy to portray Agent Dixon, a racist and violent man, as an idiot. It's funny at the moment, but then you realize that America is not so much populated by idiot cops, but rather—and especially—by serious, capable cops, and yet racist. So I believe that overall, the film's view doesn't really help America; it remains merely a funny joke. Even the figure of the sheriff is beautiful, interesting, emblematic; but perhaps the empathy his illness elicits prevents underlining his tendency to blackmail Mildred. It's as if the personal scanning of everyday life eventually prevails over the political nature of the events, and thus gradually the thorny polemics reveal themselves to be blunted.

Caustic irony can be a weapon to amplify a message; in my opinion, in this case, it softens it, leaving room for unsolvable issues. This facet of the complex picture has an additional interpretation: the expansive and relaxed music gives a Malick-like effect, of detachment from the dramatic contingency of the facts, as if to say that these problems will always be there, in a cycle impossible to truly dismantle. Arrest one rapist, there are infinite others, and the awareness of an idiot policeman guarantees no success, his fierce battles may prove useless. Mildred herself is not a truly positive character, she too has her faults, makes many mistakes, and is perhaps no better than the police officers she accuses.

In the face of such problematic nature, there is no real possibility of victoriously leading civil battles. There remain individual lives and everyday choices between good and evil. So the answer to everything is a non-answer, it's another question: what will we do tomorrow? Will we choose clemency or the thirst for revenge? Will we give another stimulus to hatred or appease it?

In fact, therefore, the film doesn't even manage to identify a cross-cutting vision. It is reduced to sketching a group of amusing characters, who beat each other up. But those three huge billboards presupposed much more political and general issues.