Yes, haters, “Three Billboard♑s Outside Ebbing, Missouri” does deserve all the .
For the past few months, I’ve been watching a gathering storm of backlash iౠn certain circles over Martin McDonagh’s vengeance drama: There’s been hand-wringing over everything from its unrepentant use of slurs to its portrayal of women to the fact that a dumb, racist cop (Sam Rockwell) ends up doing something good.
Sorry, but when did we decide that movies that depict problematic people and language are inherently bad? We’re all in agreement that Frances McDormand’s fiery character is the hero of this movie, yes? Just to clarify: Mildred Hayes (McDormand) is a domestic violence survivor who is single-handedly taking on her entire town over its disregard for the fact that her daughter was raped and murdered. She is in every way an icon for this unapologetic, brilliantly chaotic year in which women have come forward en masse to say “no more” to 🦄misogyny and sexual violence.
And yet folks are taking issue that the surrounding cast (which includes Oscar nominees Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell) doesn’t talk like a roomful of women’s studies majors at Wellesley? As someone who was among the first to call out♓ McD💮onagh’s mean-spirited use of the word “midget,” I agree the movie isn’t perfect; yes, it could have toned down its language. On the other hand — well, I’ll let my 75-year-old mom, who’s traversed most of this country in an RV, address the movie’s detractors:൩ “Who are these people, and have they ever been to Missouri?”
In a year when the HBO show “Big Little Lies” is scooping up awards with both hands for its domestic abuse story line, where’s the recognition for the♉ quiet menace in John Hawkes’ performance as Mildred’s neck-grabbing ex-husband, or the pathos of his too-young girlfriend? These characters are not cartoons. They’re depressingly real and complex.
As for the claim (which has also dogged “I, To🌞nya”) that a movie can’t — nay, shouldn’t — mix comedy and sickening violence: Um, may I direct you to “Goodfellas”? I don’t recall a huge outpouring of hate for Scorsese mashing up the two. Or any number of hundreds of other (mostly malecentric) movies out there that do likewise.
What’s more, to resent the film because Rockwell’s problematic deputy ends up performing an act of redemption is to subscribe to 🦹the worst kind of purity-test extremism: Thinking a character (or actual person) who’s done something awful is incapable of changing, or earning forgiveness.
This movie is messy and invigorating and infuriating. So is real life in America. Iꦗ’ll take “Three Billboards” over a fish-man fantasy, any day.