The opening sequence is a feast for the eyes and ears: the title-giving abandoned billboards are surrounded by fog and are very much not in use. They are underscored by a heavenly version of “The Last Rose of Summer“ sung by soprano Renée Fleming adapted by Irish poet Thomas Moore. It isn‘t clear just how vital the role of the moribund billboards will be in the next two hours of the film. Irish playwright and director Martin McDonagh‘s (7 PSYCHOS) third feature-length film is about a mother (excellent: Frances McDormand), whose daughter died in the most brutal of ways and is now on a revenge campaign of a very peculiar kind: she rents three billboards in order to confront the local police chief of his failure every day: Rape While Dying, And Still No Arrests, How Come, Chief Willoughby?

This film will make you laugh out loud, squirm, and force you to suppress your tears. It‘s hard not to think of FARGO and McDormands glorious performance there. The other performances are also laudible: Sam Rockwell, Peter “Game of Thrones“ Dinklage (with an imposing moustache), Lucas Hedges (from MANCHESTER BY THE SEA). The director gives us great images with characters are allowed to develop and the suggestive music by Carter Burwell works. THREE BILLBOARDS has six nominations in the Golden Globes in early January and the darkly comedic and very melancholy film will most likely be part of this year‘s Oscar race as well.

Matthias von Viereck (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy