Post by The Social Introvert on Mar 19, 2018 13:29:18 GMT
I really liked it. Here is my review:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obk3yCyywFE
Text version:
Three Billboards follows a grieving, frustrated and burnt out mother played by Frances McDormand who personally challenges the town cops after they fail to catch the man who tortured and killed her daughter. Now I’ve had a lot of luck in recent weeks with films, I’ve seen some really good ones, but there’s something about this film that just lets you know that you’re in for a different calibre of film-making here. It doesn’t feel like a film that will come with hype and go with insignificance – characters, scenes and even the atmosphere of this small town of Ebbing become etched into your memory after you’ve seen it. From director Martin McDonagh, creator of the incredible In Bruges and the good but probably too clever for its own good Seven Psychopaths, I think I might just have found one of the best films of 2017.
This drama, sprinkled with a dash of comedy as life itself is, is really great cinema. Sometimes when you think of the phrase ‘great cinema’ you imagine grandiose sweeping epics like Once Upon a Time in the West but Three Billboards isn’t anywhere near as ambitious in that sense. The performances from veterans such as McDormand, Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson are simply superb. They really took this project seriously and are given tremendous material to work with from McDonagh. Sometimes a character in a movie can come off as one dimensional and expendable, and when he’s given a backstory, better lines, a goal, a journey, an arch, he can feel more like an actual 2d element that can make an impact on the story and the overall film. If the actor plays him in such a way that he has his own little nuances and ticks, and the character itself comes off as relatable but ambiguous, genuine but irregular, he becomes someone that we might come to have an understanding of. We’ll be able to write an essay on his characterization and speculate on his off-screen actions using what we know about him as a springboard for our argument. This is what we might refer to as a three dimensional character. Then we have something else, something that due to a combination of all the previous elements the movie character rises above labels and hits a sweet spot where he no longer resembles a movie character - instead he feels like a real person, filled with flaws, ticks, emotions, drives and all the things that real people have. And Three Billboards is full of such characters, who all feel like real people.
Maybe I’m sounding a bit too much like an old grandad on his rocking chair here or I’m making an unfair comparison, but I’ve often found that dramas and dramedies of old, especially during the Hollywood New Wave from film-makers like Coppola, Scorsese, Forman, Lumet and Nichols had characters that felt like real people, and it all felt effortless. Maybe I was too young and inexperienced to recognise things like character arcs or maybe it’s just that those guys and their writers were just that good, but too often when I watch a modern movie I’ve thought to myself that the characters I’m seeing on screen don’t feel like real people and instead come off as plot devices and prompts. Without waffling too much on the subject, I’ve often found myself pointing and saying “Yup, that guy is the lovable rogue. Oh look, here’s the bumbling comic relief sidekick.” Even with some of the better dramas like Manchester by the Sea I can’t help but feel I’m recognising characters as cues for the protagonist’s progression as opposed to just feeling like real people. I might be heaping too much credit onto McDonagh and the cast here but I really did love the characters and how real they felt. They still have that larger than life feel that McDonagh first showcased in In Bruges but their relationships and interactions felt genuine.
Three Billboards is very funny, but I don’t think of it as a comedy. Rather the humour comes from characters who have reached such a low point in their life, have gone through such frustration and depression that their perspective of life with its little oddities is different to our own. There is deep tragedy rooted in and amongst the amusing profanity the characters launch at each other. Much of it lies in a lack of understanding and communication between each other, much like how real life conflict and discrimination often is. One character who is dying of cancer sees his life in a far different way to that of our fuming and grief-stricken protagonist. It’s almost knowing his story is ending has given him clairvoyance. It’s strange how the film can make one character’s subplot, one which involves him slowly dying of a terrible disease, leaving behind a good family, can seem more hopeful than that of McDormand’s angry character.
Anger is probably the best word that summarizes the themes of Three Billboards. At the very least it bridges all the elements of the film. Every character, bar the dying one, is angry at something. Or someone. Or some people. Or some event. Or some memory. Or some relationship. Everyone is frustrated and tired. Everyone seems to have a grudge against something. A lot of them don’t even really seem to really know what they’re really angry ant, and instead just need a target to vent. And it seems only those who are willing to let go of that anger find some kind of path to solace in the film. Our protagonist has been seeking retribution for her daughter’s fate for so long, and it seems that in the beginning everyone was on her side, but so much has happened since and she’s become so alienated with the town that maybe the answer is to…move on? Her actions in the film which begin as inspiring end up feeling somewhat pitiful and unjustified once the repercussions play out. Hope, justice, revenge and forgiveness are explored deeply in this twisted, funny and sad story. There are numerous scenes of characters verbally assaulting each other, or physically battering each other, but you come away remembering the small moments of humanity shared between them, like an assault victim offering a glass of juice to his beater, or an interrogated woman comforting the tough-guy cop juts as he suddenly coughs up blood.
In terms of McDonagh’s movies, I’d say I’d rank this somewhere in between In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths. A fine addition to his filmography. I give it an 8/10.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obk3yCyywFE
Text version:
Three Billboards follows a grieving, frustrated and burnt out mother played by Frances McDormand who personally challenges the town cops after they fail to catch the man who tortured and killed her daughter. Now I’ve had a lot of luck in recent weeks with films, I’ve seen some really good ones, but there’s something about this film that just lets you know that you’re in for a different calibre of film-making here. It doesn’t feel like a film that will come with hype and go with insignificance – characters, scenes and even the atmosphere of this small town of Ebbing become etched into your memory after you’ve seen it. From director Martin McDonagh, creator of the incredible In Bruges and the good but probably too clever for its own good Seven Psychopaths, I think I might just have found one of the best films of 2017.
This drama, sprinkled with a dash of comedy as life itself is, is really great cinema. Sometimes when you think of the phrase ‘great cinema’ you imagine grandiose sweeping epics like Once Upon a Time in the West but Three Billboards isn’t anywhere near as ambitious in that sense. The performances from veterans such as McDormand, Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson are simply superb. They really took this project seriously and are given tremendous material to work with from McDonagh. Sometimes a character in a movie can come off as one dimensional and expendable, and when he’s given a backstory, better lines, a goal, a journey, an arch, he can feel more like an actual 2d element that can make an impact on the story and the overall film. If the actor plays him in such a way that he has his own little nuances and ticks, and the character itself comes off as relatable but ambiguous, genuine but irregular, he becomes someone that we might come to have an understanding of. We’ll be able to write an essay on his characterization and speculate on his off-screen actions using what we know about him as a springboard for our argument. This is what we might refer to as a three dimensional character. Then we have something else, something that due to a combination of all the previous elements the movie character rises above labels and hits a sweet spot where he no longer resembles a movie character - instead he feels like a real person, filled with flaws, ticks, emotions, drives and all the things that real people have. And Three Billboards is full of such characters, who all feel like real people.
Maybe I’m sounding a bit too much like an old grandad on his rocking chair here or I’m making an unfair comparison, but I’ve often found that dramas and dramedies of old, especially during the Hollywood New Wave from film-makers like Coppola, Scorsese, Forman, Lumet and Nichols had characters that felt like real people, and it all felt effortless. Maybe I was too young and inexperienced to recognise things like character arcs or maybe it’s just that those guys and their writers were just that good, but too often when I watch a modern movie I’ve thought to myself that the characters I’m seeing on screen don’t feel like real people and instead come off as plot devices and prompts. Without waffling too much on the subject, I’ve often found myself pointing and saying “Yup, that guy is the lovable rogue. Oh look, here’s the bumbling comic relief sidekick.” Even with some of the better dramas like Manchester by the Sea I can’t help but feel I’m recognising characters as cues for the protagonist’s progression as opposed to just feeling like real people. I might be heaping too much credit onto McDonagh and the cast here but I really did love the characters and how real they felt. They still have that larger than life feel that McDonagh first showcased in In Bruges but their relationships and interactions felt genuine.
Three Billboards is very funny, but I don’t think of it as a comedy. Rather the humour comes from characters who have reached such a low point in their life, have gone through such frustration and depression that their perspective of life with its little oddities is different to our own. There is deep tragedy rooted in and amongst the amusing profanity the characters launch at each other. Much of it lies in a lack of understanding and communication between each other, much like how real life conflict and discrimination often is. One character who is dying of cancer sees his life in a far different way to that of our fuming and grief-stricken protagonist. It’s almost knowing his story is ending has given him clairvoyance. It’s strange how the film can make one character’s subplot, one which involves him slowly dying of a terrible disease, leaving behind a good family, can seem more hopeful than that of McDormand’s angry character.
Anger is probably the best word that summarizes the themes of Three Billboards. At the very least it bridges all the elements of the film. Every character, bar the dying one, is angry at something. Or someone. Or some people. Or some event. Or some memory. Or some relationship. Everyone is frustrated and tired. Everyone seems to have a grudge against something. A lot of them don’t even really seem to really know what they’re really angry ant, and instead just need a target to vent. And it seems only those who are willing to let go of that anger find some kind of path to solace in the film. Our protagonist has been seeking retribution for her daughter’s fate for so long, and it seems that in the beginning everyone was on her side, but so much has happened since and she’s become so alienated with the town that maybe the answer is to…move on? Her actions in the film which begin as inspiring end up feeling somewhat pitiful and unjustified once the repercussions play out. Hope, justice, revenge and forgiveness are explored deeply in this twisted, funny and sad story. There are numerous scenes of characters verbally assaulting each other, or physically battering each other, but you come away remembering the small moments of humanity shared between them, like an assault victim offering a glass of juice to his beater, or an interrogated woman comforting the tough-guy cop juts as he suddenly coughs up blood.
In terms of McDonagh’s movies, I’d say I’d rank this somewhere in between In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths. A fine addition to his filmography. I give it an 8/10.
