Instead, point 2 dissipates halfway through and the film focuses on some very unlikely character arcs that all lead up to more coincidences and nonsense (the supposed rapist just walks into a bar and brags about it) all for.what, exactly?
The film is full of illogical moments like this, combined with characters who make no sense (why would a 19-year-old who is that attractive being dating a loser of a 50-year-old?).īesides that, the plot was also a big letdown - the premise (and trailer) seem to suggest that the film will be about 1) solving the murder and 2) the battle of wills between the police and Frances McDormand. The ending seems to suggest that they're going to kill a rapist for closure because they can't solve the case - so then why did he walk into her store in the middle of the film to basically announce he did it?
The possible rapist of Frances' daughter announces himself to Frances in the middle of the film - but we're later told for sure this was not the rapist, but another rapist. The "town midget" saves Frances from being blamed for the police station fire (which also has no consequences on the police department and is never returned to) and asks her on a date, where for no reason he ends up being embarrassed in a way that has nothing to do with the story or contribute to her development as a person. The new chief fires Sam Rockwell, but does not arrest him for battery and assault, and does not ask for an ambulance to help the dying man in the street. Woody Harrelson's suicide leads Sam Rockwell to beat up Caleb Landry Jones in the middle of the town's main street, right as a new Chief arrives. It's a 7th grader's idea of screenwriting irony. Is this supposed to be darkly funny? It's an odd moment for such a joke. The story itself is a complete mess, filled with similar illogical distortions of reality - coincidences piled on coincidences to produce specific moments that in themselves are not satisfying or worth the punchline:įrances' daughter had a fight with her before walking down the road that she was raped on (unlikely) and also shouts "I HOPE I GET RAPED" (stupid).
I don't know, it feels like if I (an American) wrote a movie about London that was mired in my stereotypes rather than the reality of what it's like there. This happened everywhere - but not in McDonagh's fictional Ebbing, MO. I grew up in a town of 9,000 with a main street just like the one in the film, but main street was dead even in the 00s, a quaint relic with a few shops to visit but no real life - the edges of town are where Wal-Mart, McDonald's, and the like had co-opted and moved the culture of a city to something by the interstate. They aren't really characters, but come off like the worst inclusive writing decision - acknowledging that none of the actual important characters in the story are POC, they are shoe horned in as friends of our main character to remind us that she is a "good person" because she happens to be friends with African-Americans (in a way nobody else in the film is).īesides this, the small town this movie portrays mostly doesn't exist anymore. This is not how rural people think, feel or act - its just a caricature or fantasy land of what small town life must be life from a bunch of Hollywood A-listers (and an Irish director).įor example - there are several African-American characters in the film, and they are basically Brooklyn hipsters living in this small town. From the stilted dialogue with fake accents to the character types, nothing is really representative of the Midwest and only seems like McDonagh felt inspired by the flavor or surface images of Missouri he's experienced (before this film). Like most of the film.īesides that, it's one of the worst cases of a film made about the Midwest by a foreign director that gets everything wrong. Strike one thing - the characters are interesting, but completely illogical.
There's no consistent theme, or even interesting characters, its just a series of audience pleasing moments and jokes that interlock and take weird turns - like In Bruges - but in this film add up to absolutely nothing substantial or meaningful. This movie feels like a bad first draft of an extremely undeveloped idea.
I'm a fan of In Bruges and sort of Seven Psychopaths, but this was definitely McDonagh's worst film to me. Yo yo - "Three Billboards" currently has a limited release, and I managed to see it last night.