By Alex Gehrlein ’19
Martin McDonagh has made some of the funniest, most well written films of the last decade. In Bruges is my personal favorite of his three films so far, and while his last, Seven Psychopaths, pales in comparison to his other work, Three Billboards proves that Martin McDonagh is without a doubt one of the most talented screenwriters working today. This is a film with an admittedly far fetched premise.
After the police have spent months with little to show on the murder of her daughter, Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) pays to have three billboards put up outside of their small town, reminding the police to go out and do their job. This provides the basis for a series of brilliantly written encounters between disgruntled townsfolk, police, and familiar faces (Woody Harrelson, Peter Dinklage, Sam Rockwell, etc.) all with differing views of the controversial problem. I feel that I can’t really go much more beyond that, since the rest of the film consists of rapidly escalating confrontations, which to reveal any bit of the surprise from would ruin the fun of the film.
Without a doubt, this film will win the best original screenplay award at the Oscars, and it is my personal opinion that Frances McDormand more than deserves to win the best actress award for her fantastic performance along with Sam Rockwell in the supporting actor category. This is not only, in my opinion, the best film of the year, this is one of the best films of the 2000s, and in a few years time will be seen as a masterpiece along the likes of classic films of the crime genre.
See this soon, as it is starting to go out of theaters. 10 out of 10
