OSCAR-BAIT AND ULTRALIBERAL POWER FANTASIES

On a political thread, I wrote (at least partly with reference to the activities of Antifa):


The other day I got round to seeing Oscar nominee THREE BILLBOARDS, ETC. I knew only bits and pieces about the film going in, but now I see that the movie, however unintentionally, delivers a great metaphor for the current confusion of liberals, ultraliberals, and whatever most of the posters here call themselves. It's a movie that shows how the descendants of liberals have become the thing they profess to hate: advocating senseless violence and vigilantism-- I highlight "senseless" as opposed to efficacious activity-- willing to do anything so that they, the quasi-liberals, no longer feel weak and disempowered.

Some SPOILERS now, since I want to touch on some pertinent details on this weird, thoroughly unfocused piece of Oscar-bait:

(1) In Ebbing, Missouri, middle-aged Mildred Hayes puts up three billboards to castigate the local lawmen for failing to solve the rape and murder and Mildred's teenaged daughter. The lawmen can't legally force her to take down the uncomplimentary billboards, but most of the Ebbing people are against Mildred. Much of the resistance stems from "the old boy's network," though some locals sympathize with police chief Willoughby-- who is named in a billboard that reads, "How come, Chief Willoughby?"--  because he's dying of cancer.

(2) Willoughby's principal deputy, Dixon, is said to be a racist because he supposedly hassles Ebbing's black citizens, though only one incident takes place during the main story. Dixon supposedly regards the older Willoughby as some sort of father-figure, though the early part of the film doesn't really make this case. Yet one has to assume something along these lines, because when Willoughby commits suicide, Dixon goes berserk and beats up the guy who owns the billboards. This gets him fired from the police force.

(3) An unknown vandal burns down Mildred's billboards. Mildred assumes that one of the cops did it and bombards the police station with Molotov cocktails. Dixon, who happens to be inside the closed station after hours, gets severely burned. However, because Dixon has received a letter from the dead Willoughby, Dixon feels a belated desire to be a real cop rather than the town bully-boy.

(4) Mildred finds out that the billboard vandal was none other than her ex-husband, whose reasons for the arson make no sense at all.

(5) Dixon, by dumb luck (if that's the word for it), goes to a bar and overhears a conversation between two men, one of whom references a rape not unlike that of Mildred's daughter. Through an involved process Dixon manages to get a DNA sample from the big-talker. He prematurely tells Mildred that he may've located the rapist-murderer. However, the sample avails Dixon nothing, for the sample doesn't match that of the uncaught rapist of Mildred's daughter, and for good measure the big-talker wasn't even in the country at the time.

(6) Nevertheless, Mildred and Dixon are so frustrated by not receiving their share of justice that they decide to hunt down the big-talker, assuming that he must have raped someone. The film ends without revealing whether or not the allies go through with their resolution to visit vigilante justice.

NOW-- I've seen a lot of art-films in which a skillful scenarist creates valid ambivalence about what a protagonist will or should do. But Martin McDonagh-- producer, director, and co-writer of THREE BILLBOARDS-- has produced the worst "fake ambivalence" I've ever seen. His characters are alternately shrill and stupid, righteous and unprincipled, and, as I said in the post, driven to exorcise their own pain through violence, even AFTER they've made blunders of mistaken identity.

I've been often contemptuous of current Oscar nominees, for their sheer lack of talent and originality. But I'd dedicate a billboard with the words, "How come, Martin McDonagh"-- with the added phrase, "--you don't get into a career more suited to you, like selling life insurance, since all you can do is push people's fear-buttons?"