Expect The 'Three Billboards' Backlash To Dominate All Oscars Talk — Here's Why
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If you've been following the lead-up to this year's Academy Awards, then you probably weren't shocked by the results of the 2018 Golden Globes: Martin McDonagh's "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" won Best Motion Picture for Drama.1 The two stars in "Three Billboards" — Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell — also walked away with Globes for acting, as did McDonagh for Best Screenplay. 

These wins will further gird the convictions of industry-aware critics who think that, contrary to its early glowing reception, "Three Billboards" is actually quite bad.​

Here's a collection of reviews and critical articles that make the case against "Three Billboards," as well as some light background on what its Best Motion Picture win really means for Oscars voters:

First, A Brief Plot Set-Up

McDormand's and Rockwell's characters in the movie, Mildred Hayes and Jason Dixon, start on two sides of the story's central issue — the murder and rape of Mildred's daughter Angela. Seven months have passed since Angela's death, and the Ebbing police have made no progress on the murder investigation, which prompts Mildred to rent three billboards just outside of town to deliver a pointed message to Ebbing's sheriff, Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson). Willoughby is sympathetic to Mildred yet says the police have done all they can. Dixon, an officer on the force notorious for having tortured a black man in the town jail, targets Mildred and those close to her over the billboards. Mildred escalates this contentious relationship with the police and their supporters through acts of violence and vandalism.

The Early Detractors

"Three Billboards" was screened at the Venice Film Festival last September, where it received near-universal praise from the critics in attendance. Most of the early reviews prior to its release in November were similar, with many praising the dichotomy of McDormand's grieving mother-turned-vigilante and Rockwell's racist cop given an opportunity for redemption. Some early reviews, however, poked holes in these arcs for their lack of societal context and for Dixon's lightspeed turnaround in attitude:

If you're looking for a greater sense of the kind of police department that'd let Dixon get away with torture, or with throwing another man out of a window literally across the street from the police station, that's missing here. A sense of context for the ways these people behave, and the relationships and moral unions that give rise to their behavior, is similarly missing. The movie feels like it's playing out in a vacuum.

[The Ringer]

McDonagh sets up Dixon to repent and be raised from the ashes like a phoenix — he literally has to emerge from a fire at the police station — while Mildred is set up to forgive him. Then, impossibly, McDonagh pretty much turns them into a buddy-comedy duo. The writer-director was clearly inspired by the muddied morality tales of the great Flannery O'Connor — characters are even seen reading her books — but O'Connor wouldn't have tried to sell the bad guy as suddenly all good. Yeah, that drunken, murderous convict might do one selfless thing, but O'Connor would let us know he's still rotten, while McDonagh would have us believe that Dixon is legitimately a changed man overnight.

[The Village Voice]


Callous Language And Shallow Justification

Further out from release, more pieces have delved into the precise ways the film amplifies Mildred's rage past the point of empathy and how Dixon's buffoonish racism is brushed off, leveraged for laughs and by no means touched upon by his "helpful" turn towards the story's end:

"Three Billboards" doesn't have — or make — room to explore the implications of [Dixon's] presence in the film. Sheriff Willoughby insists that he's kept Dixon on the force because "You got rid of every cop with vaguely racist leanings, you'd have three cops left and all of them would hate the fags." The movie never asks whether he's right about the cop shortage in town. And it never examines what this kind of brutal practicality means for Willoughby's supposed deep decency.

[The Washington Post]

[Mildred's] unhinged rage — expressions of which are framed as invitations to spout you-go-girl-isms at the screen — makes her look silly instead, and the righteousness of her cause suffers as a result. Going around town like a caricature of a bad cop, assaulting children and destroying property with impunity, makes her just like the worst person in town after Angela's killer: Sam Rockwell's Officer Jason Dixon.

[Slate]

In the midst of being questioned by Dixon, Hayes shoots out "How's the nigger torturing business, Dixon?" Dixon, flustered, offers a response along the lines of "You can't say nigger torturing no more, you gotta say peoples of color torturing."[…] The joke is that the white cop who tortures black people is trying to stop calling them niggers. Or maybe the joke is that McDormand, the righteously angry white protagonist, has a black friend (one of two black people we see in the town) but still thinks provoking a joke about niggers is funny.

[Pacific Standard]

[Dixon] discovers potential information by happenstance, but we're supposed to believe he has such a moral compass that he springs into action. It's the type of journey that will surely tug at the heartstrings of industry voters and might just lead to awards success. But more than likely, that "moral compass" was only brought about by the visceral image of a young white woman being violated that sprung him into action. The memories of those black bodies he apparently tortured in custody don't keep him up at night. And the black Americans who have to watch films like this, or plays laced with the word "nigger," don't seem to keep McDonagh up at night either.

[The Daily Beast]


How 'Three Billboards' Sloughs Off Critiques Like Past Oscars Winners

Of course, these critiques came after "Three Billboards" already rode a wave of initial praise to early award season buzz. For critics displeased with the movie for all the reasons listed above and acutely aware of its appeal to the likes of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the typical Academy voter set, the question isn't about the film's quality, it's about whether it'll continue to win in spite of these criticisms:

 

 

[Gene Demby]

Its success lies on a continuum of movies that go largely unchallenged by critics and audiences because they absolve certain viewers from actually having to care about the larger implications of their themes. Because few critics are willing or able to engage critically with the movie on race, McDonagh himself does not have to engage, does not have to wrestle with some of his failures as an artist.

[HuffPost]


So, Is 'Three Billboards' Likely To Win The Oscar?

As Vox helpfully explains, the Golden Globes are not an especially good predictor of Oscars success in the Best Picture category. The small, secretive bunch that comprises the Hollywood Foreign Press Association ultimately get Best Picture right about half the time (though, funnily enough, "La La Land" and "Moonlight" both won at last year's Globes, a fitting set-up to the Oscars fuck-up punchline).

Still, the Globes are the biggest televised awards show in the lead-up to the Academy Awards, which means more attention is lavished on their results than on the stronger-but-less-publicized predictors. Voting closes for the Academy Awards this Friday, so the Globes results and ensuing aftermath will be fresh on the minds of yet-undecided voters.

So, in the case of "Three Billboards," this week stands to unleash a series of competing takes on the film's strengths and weaknesses.2 Film critics have a narrow window to try and reach the hearts and minds of Academy voters, and they'll probably do their damnedest.

1

Greta Gerwig's directorial debut, "Lady Bird," took home Best Motion Picture in the Comedy or Musical category. Gerwig was snubbed in the Best Director category.

2

Many who are critical of the movie's handling of race still think McDormand and Rockwell gave fine performances, so it's a safe bet that someone will argue one or both actors should win while the film should lose.

<p>Mathew Olson is an Associate Editor at Digg.</p>

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