movies

"The movie that made me cry so hard my boobs were soaking wet."

When the final credits rolled at the end of Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri, I looked down and noticed that my boobs were… wet.

Soaking wet.

So wet it was… odd.

For almost two hours I had been so engrossed in the world of Ebbing, Missouri that I hadn’t noticed the constant stream of tears flowing down my face and onto my boobs.

I hadn’t noticed because Three Billboards is just that friggin’ good.

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It’s the kind of movie that will make you laugh out loud while simultaneously bawling your eyes out.

And it’s one of those films that will change the way you feel about even the most difficult people in your life.

Three Billboards tells the story of Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand), a small town store clerk who hires three billboards outside of – you guessed it – Ebbing, Missouri to send a message to local law enforcement.

Eight months earlier Mildred’s daughter, Angela, was raped and murdered just down the road from the family home.

So far no one has been arrested for the murder and the police seem to have no leads.

Frustrated and overcome with grief, Mildred decides to take matters into her own hands. She wants to call out the local police chief (Woody Harrelson) and his deputy, Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell), for what she perceives as a lack of interest in her daughter’s case.

So Mildred puts a $5000 down payment on the three billboards and has the following messages written on them:

“Raped While Dying”

“And Still No Arrests?”

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“How Come, Chief Willoughby?”

Of course, the billboards set off a chain of events that no one in Ebbing could have ever predicted, a chain of events which would change the small community forever.

Without giving too much away, something happens and the town blames Mildred for it. So they retaliate. Then Mildred retaliates. And this continues until we really don’t know who’s on what side anymore.

And that’s the real beauty of Three Billboards – no one is wholly good and wholly bad. Everyone is pretty damn complicated and they’re all just doing the best they can.

Mildred is grieving but won’t let anyone in, she’s gruff, aggressive and at times downright scary.

Chief Willoughby is dying from pancreatic cancer, he’s trying to solve the murder while also attempting to spend as much time as possible with his wife and two small daughters.

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Officer Dixon is racist, violent and out of control, but deep down he just wants to be a good man, the man he always thought he would be.

By the end of the movie we still don’t know who murdered Mildred’s daughter but that’s kind of beside the point.

Instead we learn a hell of a lot about the people of Ebbing, Missouri and we learn even more about what it’s really like to be human and flawed.

Three Billboards is a movie about the bitter reality of dying, the overwhelming sorrow of grief, and the sadness that comes with realising you’ll never get to live the life you always thought you deserved.

Also, it’s damn funny.

Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri gets five out of five tear-soaked boobs.

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