FILM REVIEW (2018) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.Los Angeles, CA, USA: Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, directed by Martin McDonagh, was released in 2018, receiving prestigious accolades for both the screenplay, direction and acting. It stars Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell, with Caleb Landry Jones, John Hawkes and Peter Dinklage in supporting roles. The movie’s plot consists of a grotesque story of humanity shattered by an unspeakable crime, self-sustaining rage and grief, dramatised by southern gothic aesthetic and a folk country soundtrack. It conveys images of excessive destruction (which often elicit comic effects) and pos- sible redemption (which trigger moral reflection) cast against a motionless natural landscape of the Midwest US. Mildred Hayes (McDormand) is outraged that no arrests have yet been made in relation to the rape and murder of her daughter seven months ago. She publicly challenges the local police, led by a terminally ill Chief Willoughby (Harrelson) and his no-good deputy Dixon (Rockwell), by renting three billboards just outside the town which display explicit accusations against the police’s lack of initiative. This sets in motion the development of dramatic events which appear to transform (some) characters’ moral standing, alongside yielding further moral outrage and producing a final, perhaps-cathartic alliance between Mildred and police officer Dixon in their quest for justice-as-revenge.