Review of "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri"

Yes, I just got round to seeing this, even though everyone else saw it ages ago. I was inspired by watching Frances McDormand in Nomadland, where she was so very good. And she's great in this too, but the film is a polar opposite of Nomadland - very dark, and with really a lot of violence, and even more barely suppressed violence. 

On reflection it reminded me a bit of The Unforgiven, which I watched before I started writing reviews - but which was a pure tragedy,  in that the characters are not all bad, but the playing out of the consequences of their actions make really bad things happen, irrespective of intentions. 

The plot is simple enough - Mildred's daughter was raped and murdered seven years ago, and she's so angry with the police department's failure to catch the perpetrators that she pays to put up billboard proclaiming this failure. From this everything else follows...though strictly speaking some of what follows is the playing out of tensions that were already present rather than the direct consequences of the billboards. 

The acting is great, the cinematography and the music very evocative, and it makes America look grim and awful...racist, violent, and poor. 

Another one from informal distribution, via Chromecast and VLC