re: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

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That's good to hear. Honestly thought it was going to be bad. Maybe that was just my reaction to the title.

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Shawshank Redemption Syndrome.

Saw this last night. Wonderful movie. I like In Bruges better because the ending is better. Real consequences occur.

Three Billboards leaves an ambiguous ending which is almost always less satisfying than a concrete ending. And it's in part because it makes the last act feel discombobulated and meandering.

I get it.


SPOILER*****

These 2 people, so consumed with hate that they are otherwise empty, find ultimately a scapegoat upon which they can exact their revenge. Dixon, broken by a series of acts and events in his life, has managed to go from nearly turning the corner to having yet another setback that causes him to turn back to his violent rage. Mildred has been filled with rage since her daughter died and that hasn't gone anywhere, particularly after her hopes are brought back when she gets Dixon's phone call.

But the two of them are so filled with anger that they set out on this potential vigilante mission without any clear mission at all. It's all half baked. Yet they have nothing left to live for. The anger is all consuming. They are rabid dogs, pointed in a direction that may lead them to careening off a cliff and they don't care.

But this is still just not all that satisfying, particularly given the animosity between the two of them throughout the film. There is no catharthis, which to an audience is dissatisfying.

That said, on an intellectual level, it is quite good.

END SPOILER*****


The acting was borderline otherworldly. Rockwell's ability to play the tragic and the comedic simultaneously is fricking jaw dropping. He out acted everyone and McDormand and Harrellson are at their best in this movie.

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The acting was borderline otherworldly. Rockwell's ability to play the tragic and the comedic simultaneously is fricking jaw dropping. He out acted everyone and McDormand and Harrellson are at their best in this movie.

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The last film I saw with 3 performances as good as these were in No Country for Old Men, directed by Frances' husband and brother-in-law. (And had Woody in a decent, smaller role.)

That's as high a compliment as I can pay to the acting.

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Saw a story ON FACEBOOK that this was the origin of the story/novel. Is this true or is this Facebook news. It was an ever present thing growing up in SETX.

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Supposedly the writer saw the billboards in Vidor and used that as an idea for Three Billboards, but that's where the similarities end.

Inspiration behind it.