Who doesn’t remember Marge Gunderson from Fargo , arguably the most recognised movie of the Coen Brothers? Frances McDormand, who brilliantly played the foul-mouthed cop, has resurfaced as a somewhat crazy mother-of-two (one of whom has died) in the much talked about Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri , which has worked up an Oscar frenzy with seven nominations, including best actress for McDormand.

In 2015, women’s rage surfaced as the dystopian drama Mad Max . In 2017, there’s Three Billboards... , a quieter, but as disquiet a film. It would be fair to say Three Billboards..., released in India last week, is one of those films that’s gaining traction in post-Trump Hollywood. It digs deep into the crumbling social structures in semi-urban America, far removed from the city’s political correctness, where cops routinely resort to racial violence, and where things are the same old, but not good old any more. This is no more the happy country America of the ’90s Hollywood.

It is refreshing to see McDormand not play a Coen brothers character, for a change, and she leaves a lasting impression. (She has been a part of seven Coen brothers’ films, getting Oscar nominations for Almost Famous and North Country and winning for Fargo ). In Three Billboards... , she plays Mildred Hayes, a character written to great dramatic effect by Martin McDonagh, one that white women are privileged to get in the post-Weinstein scene. No such luck for women of colour, though. All the characters in the film are unapologetically white, except for the bit part given to Clarke Peters ( The Wire) , who is introduced merely to school the racist cop Dixon, played by Sam Rockwell (incidentally, also nominated for an Academy award). The film has been criticised for its unclear stance on racial politics. Instances such as when Mildred asks the cop, “How’s it going in the nigger-torturing business, Dixon?”, and he answers solemnly, “It’s ‘persons of colour’ torturing business, if you want to know”, the joke falls uneasy. It’s too soon after the Ferguson shootings, even for black humour.

After their daughter dies, Mildred’s husband moves out to live with a teenaged girl who interns at the zoo, while Mildred continues living with her son. Her daughter had been raped and burnt to death by an unidentified assailant eight months ago. Continued apathy from the police, who appear to be too caught up in their personal lives, or too busy to look up from their Krispy Kremes, forces Mildred to put up three billboards in a deserted part of town. The billboards — three in quick succession — read, ‘Raped and burnt’, ‘Still no arrests’ and ‘How come Chief Willoughby?’ The chief’s name is there, as “the buck needs to stop somewhere.” Chief Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) is the benevolent patriarch; he has cancer, if this were to be an allegory for decaying patriarchy. He’s dying, and, yet, Mildred has little sympathy for him; her daughter has died, and something has snapped inside her.

A tough woman, she doesn’t care about the local parish’s disapproval, the police’s intimidation, her friend’s arrest, or her family’s annoyance; Mildred owns the movie with her brittle but unbreakable façade.

In a soliloquy that will remain with us, Mildred is seen sitting on her bed, wearing her pair of bunny slippers, play-acting in a baby-talking voice, “Shall we kill the mother-fuckers?” Her hope might be dead, but her wit isn’t. And that is what drives Mildred and makes her such a hero/anti-hero; her wit and humour might stem from her cynicism towards life, but aren’t the biggest cynics also the biggest dreamers?

Mildred may have maligned Willoughby, but she develops a close association with the billboards. She returns to the site repeatedly, as though she were expecting answers to sprout on them. The power of her billboards is apparent in how the protest has grown beyond the film: After the Syria attacks, three billboards have been put up outside the UN office in New York, which read: “500,000 dead in Syria”, “And still no action?” and “How come Security Council?”

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW