I think it’s for that reason that Three Billboards has begun to work as a protest symbol in the same way that the red robes from The Handmaid’s Tale have.
In that context, a movie in which a woman’s rage is portrayed as operatic, in which Frances McDormand’s speeches are less like rants than like arias, is immensely cathartic. It went into wide release on November 10, just over a month after the first Harvey Weinstein story broke, as it was becoming clear that the flood of stories about powerful men who preyed on women with impunity was not going to slow down anytime soon. So by your estimation, why has Three Billboards managed to be both popular and a lightning rod for controversy? Why have people (critics and audiences alike) responded so strongly to the film? What makes it a potential “best film” of 2017?Ĭonstance Grady : Three Billboards strikes me as a film that’s both benefited enormously from its timing and been hurt by it. The question I kept asking myself was why audiences and critics at its initial screenings had responded to it so strongly, and why they continued to respond to it all fall. How Three Billboards went from film fest darling to awards-season controversy I found myself talking and writing about Three Billboards a lot more than I had anticipated when I first saw it in Toronto. And at the same time, it came in for heavy criticism of its sloppy racial politics and what some people saw as a “redemptive” arc for a racist cop. Then it started picking up awards from critics groups and guilds. It’s often a very funny movie, with undeniably great performances, but I didn’t think it was as good as McDonagh’s earlier films ( In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths), and it didn’t strike me as a “crowd pleaser” at the time. It won the People’s Choice Award there, which often signals that a movie will be a major contender for Best Picture, and which means non-critic audiences (Toronto opens its festival screenings to the public) really liked it too.Īt the time, I was kind of amazed that it won that award. I saw it in September during its hotly anticipated North American debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, where many people were praising it. It’s one of the most likely winners - but we have complicated feelings about it.Īlissa Wilkinson: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is the most controversial of the Best Picture nominees, and it’s also one of the favorites to win. In this installment, we talk about Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, a tragicomedy that has garnered both acclaim and plenty of controversy. What made this film appealing to Academy voters? What makes it emblematic of the year? And should it win? In the runup to the Oscars, Vox’s culture staff decided to take a look at each of the nine Best Picture nominees in turn. And thinking about what the Academy voters - as well as audiences and critics - found enticing about them helps us better understand both Hollywood and what we were looking for at the movies more broadly this year.
There are genre films and art films, horror films and history films, romances and tragicomedies.
Oscar cheat sheet: what to know about the wide-open Best Picture race