Even if that means she has to break her relationship with her son or is totally oblivious to the only other person who would help her. This is her way of dealing with the trauma. But when she is alone, she is broken and shattered mother who lost her daughter in the brutal murder and still can’t come out of that. Yes, she is strong independent woman, and we can see that with her interactions with town hecklers, her depressed son, her wife-beating ex-husband, revengeful police officers. No one, literally not a single character truly (at some point even Mildred herself) understands and sees her true intentions.ĭixon and Willoughby “asking” Mildred to take billboards off Town’s folk think of Mildred either as an ungrateful bitch who hates cops or as a way to shove the police back on their places. However, no one else sees this understanding between characters. Mildred wants closure that she never got, Willoughby understands that he failed one person of the community he chose to protect. And even though they have nasty run-ins, both of the characters express gratuity towards each other. He feels guilty about it, more than anybody. Chief Willoughby is very sympathetic to Mildred’s case. Mildred knows police done all they could. This is where you understand what the whole story was about. The ending is probably the only place McDonagh’s classic style finally shows up. And the resolution of the film couldn’t have been any better. We follow it closely, it pushes us deeply into our seats. When you are thinking where exactly the story is going, it makes a sudden, but steady turn. There is an interesting twist (“turn” would be a better word, actually) towards the end. McDonagh doesn’t need to show the physical pain of the mother, he just needs to show elaborate struggle of her to come to terms with her trauma. When your regular director would have shown the actual death scene or the brutal discovery of the body, mother hugging the burnt corpse of her child, crying at the sky, blaming God, etc. And it’s not even related to the crime itself. He also does a good job complimenting storyline with one single flashback. Be that in violent moments or black comedy elements. DirectionĪs I said, this is the most unlikely McDonagh film so far. And all because Mildred decided to put on some billboards. It is about society being forced to act and show their true face. Young boy who just wants to forget all that happened to his sister. Dentist who thinks he needs to punish Mildred for insulting beloved Chief. An advertiser who wishes to take revenge on police officers who berated him for his ways. About racist police officer who can not contain his emotions. About chief of police, who thinks he is doing everything he can. It is about broken mother, who sees no other choice than to instigate anger of society for abandoning her anger. It is about real people dealing with real life problems. There are no surreal, existential or metaphysical elements present. It is not about mafia, assassins, kidnappers, psychopaths, writers or actors. Martin McDonagh, the writer and director of “ In Bruges” and “ Seven Psychopaths“, returns from hiatus to give us a very different work, unlike anything he has made before. But what she can do? She is in the corner after all. “Why don’t you make the database bigger? Why don’t you take DNA samples of all males age 8 and up?” Mildred asks, and Chief Willoughby replies There were DNA samples collected on murder site, but they don’t match anyone in the database. She wants for police to catch the murderer(s) of her daughter. What drives Mildred is simple – she wants answers. What else can a mother of victim can do to have the answers? Turns out, the billboards are only the start. “Raped while dying”, “And still no arrests?”, “How come, Chief Willoughby?” they would say. Next day she drives to town and pays up a rent to have those billboards run an ad. She notices the barely visible sign of the “Ebbing Advertising Company” that owns the billboard. Even in their glorious days they were far from the quality of modern billboards. They are made from wood, with rusted metal exterior. Right outside City of Ebbing, Missouri, on the country road, that even most of the town people don’t know about, those billboards just stand there indicated long lost memory of visual advertising. No one has rented them since 80’s. What do you do when you are forced into a corner? Do you give up? Or do you put up a fight? And who do you fight – the oppressor who left you there or the situation that made you be there? Or maybe you just want to let everyone know that you won’t be going down easily? Especially even if you know that whatever you are trying to do will not have any results, but instigate even more fights? That’s what probably passes through the head of Mildred Hayes, as she drives past three torn-down billboards next to her house.
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