She channels her rage by renting the signs and placing the following messages on each: “Raped while dying,” “And Still No Arrests?” and “How Come Chief Willoughby?” She notices there are three dilapidated, abandoned billboards on Drinkwater Road heading into town. McDonagh’s original screenplay concerns the middle-aged gift shop owner, Mildred Hayes (McDormand), whose daughter Angela was abducted, raped and murdered seven months prior, and the police have done nothing significant to help. Incredibly frustrated, Mildred lashes out against the local police. This gem was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including best picture, and Sam Rockwell received the Oscar for best supporting actor. McDormand won her second best actress Oscar in British director Martin McDonagh’s unique crime drama “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2017). Meryl Streep and Ingrid Bergman each won two best actress Oscars and one for best supporting actress. Katharine Hepburn tops the list with four best-actress Oscars. When Francis McDormand won an Oscar this year for “Nomadland,” she joined a unique club of only four actresses who have won three or more Oscars for their outstanding acting. Sign up here to get INSIDER's favorite stories straight to your inbox.TW: This post contains brief discussion and language regarding sexual assault.
Dampened hype like this matters, as was proven last year when "Moonlight" won best picture while people started souring on "La La Land." Perhaps the best picture winner will be "The Shape of Water" after all. Now that the final round of voting for the Oscars is in before the March 4 ceremony, its chances look dimmer.
Still, the movie seems to worsen upon consideration, and enthusiasm for it is fading. The movie has a 93% positive score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and McDormand's performance is almost universally praised as one of her best. It's worth noting that while "Three Billboards" has its haters, critics generally liked it. "Seeing Dinklage in one of these roles again, despite everything he has accomplished over the past seven years, is one of the most lacerating things about 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.'" Overall, reviews of the movie is positive. "Hollywood’s ability to squander Dinklage’s talents isn’t the worst or only tragedy of the industry’s narrow-mindedness," Alyssa Rosenberg wrote in The Washington Post. Letting Dixon's racism slide doesn't support that depiction.įrances McDormand and Peter Dinklage in "Three Billboards." Furthermore, Willoughby himself is painted as a sort of saintly man with a deep sense of decency. The only black character of note plays a supporting role in a white character's storyline about racism.Īnd why wasn't Dixon fired earlier for, say, being racist? As Woody Harrelson's Chief Willoughby explains, "You got rid of every cop with vaguely racist leanings, you’d have three cops left and all of them would hate the f-gs." Critics aren't willing to swallow that, and the movie doesn't interrogate that premise. He quickly fires Dixon, leading Dixon to learn the error of his ways, but never becomes a substantial character in his own right. Late in the movie, his department gets a new police chief, who is a black man. But there's no black presence onscreen to reckon with. The movie treats Dixon's racism as an abstraction: He's dealt with his frustration of his low-income upbringing and overbearing mother by asserting power as a police officer when he can get away with it. Sam Rockwell and Frances McDormand in "Three Billboards."