Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017 USA)

Director: Martin McDonagh
Starring: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell
Genre: Drama, Crime
Duration: 115 mins

This third film written and directed by profane poet Martin McDonagh is a rough meditation on the true nature of loss, grief and vengeance. Yet it’s not the simple tale you presume it to be at heart: that of a mother’s most primal pain and her redemptive path away from it. It dwells and squats in the ugly pain, the very fire of the grief, muddying preconceptions and presumptions beyond recognition, while still speaking to both small realities and profound truths. This is McDonagh at his most complex, painting entirely in greys as he surveys the cruelties born from barely buried hurts.