Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

According to UN statistics, 1 in 3 women have experienced physical or sexual violence at some point in their lives. The abuse and violence towards women is showing to be bigger and wider than we imagined, and recent campaigns like #MeToo have strengthened the voices that claim foe gender justice.

In such an important historic moment for this topic, a film like Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is quite pertinent. It follows the quest of a mother seeking justice after the rape and homicide of her daughter by questioning the police in three big billboards. What sets this film apart from other revenge-seeking movies is the smart approach it has and its complex and well-written characters.

A Mildred Hayes, our "heroine", is far from being the best mother and her language and behavior could be very questionable. Her vices and her faults are fully shown, she's not the usual stoic mother claiming for justice. But that is what make her very human. We're never manipulated to like this woman for her suffering or for her stoicism, we get to like her because she takes action, because she is determined to expose a system that allows rapes and murders go unpunished.

It's tone of black comedy is also something to applaud. It is extremely politically incorrect, but in a way that questions and exhibits the vices of Deep America. Sam Rockwell's character is appalling in his racism and bigotry, an uneducated man that happens to have some power, but it is he who ends up being the joke. Both Rockwell and Frances McDormand got quite rich characters to begin with, but they make the best out of them, with amazing performances that bring life to the smart writing of Martin McDonagh, a guy that is taking his own personal style as a director to new heights.

In the end, this is not an uplifting film, but one that showcases how much the lack of love and empathy is a vicious cycle that takes an entire society through the spirals of hopelessness. The system is rotten and the people are forced to take justice in their hands, violence only leading to more and more violence.