This phenomenon is completely O'Connor-esque. By showing the soul's darkness through foul language accompanied by commensurate action, we are invited to observe the mystery of unexpected change, those subsequent actions framed by the choices the characters make and their expressed thoughts: the internal reality of grace in action. That violence does not win is an outward manifestation of inner realities, again, raising the idea of the sacramental function of film. Mildred's utter distraction by the loss of her child through the agency of human violence motivates her own brand of violence. These arise from a young girl's murder, suicide, grief, illness, loneliness, loss, racism and frustration at justice denied. The characters' words and actions are the external manifestation of all kinds of simmering negative and sinful inner dispositions, making the sacramentality of the film stands out. Charlie (John Hawkes) is Mildred's ex-husband, who prances around town with his pretty but not-so-bright 19-year-old girlfriend, Penelope (Samara Weaving), who provides one of the most truthful lines in the film, "Anger begets anger," and evokes one of the funniest from a mystified James: "Penelope said 'begets'?"
Angela (Kathryn Newton) is the saucy daughter, now dead, who appears in Mildred's tormented memory that is brimming over with guilt and regret. Robbie (Lucas Hedges) is Mildred's long-suffering high school age son whom she embarrasses greatly when she puts up the billboards. Mildred works at a local souvenir shop with her friend Denise (Amanda Warren), an African-American woman who suffers for Mildred's actions and Dixon's mean streak. There is a dwarf, James (Peter Dinklage), who sells used cars, frequents a pool hall and is sweet on the divorced Mildred. Of course, Dixon is known for having beaten a black man in custody and is proud of it. There are Mexican and African-American characters in the film that most of the white characters, fulfilling the stereotype of Southern redneck racists, denigrate almost without thinking. Cedric (Zeljko Ivanek) is the long-suffering desk sergeant who cannot stand being called by his name. It's hard to wrangle this small town, his police department and the open secret of his illness.
The police chief, Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), is a good man dying of pancreatic cancer and is married to Anne (Abbie Cornish) with two young daughters. Moments of grace like this make "Three Billboards" a deeply human and spiritual film.ĭixon (Sam Rockwell) is a rather dimwitted, racist cop with a violent streak some think he may be gay because he reads comic books and still lives with his weather-beaten, beer-drinking mother, Momma Dixon (Sandy Martin).
She sees him with love she is flooded with grace just before she dies because her way of seeing has changed. In the short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," an old, bothersome grandmother realizes that the young criminal who is about to kill her could be her own son and her whole demeanor changes. It's as if the film is populated by just the kind of people with which O'Connor fills her novels and short stories. While it might seem a good man is hard to find in this story, we soon meet a cast of assorted characters among whom are some good, deeply flawed and eccentric men and women. It is the first visual moment of grace in the film. With an utterly tender touch, she flips him over. If you are familiar with O'Connor's Southern Gothic fiction with its humor of the absurd fleshed out by eccentric characters in a Christ-haunted culture who can and do go to surprising extremes, you can just sit back and watch how grace holds their lives together and transcends the darkness that seems too heavy to bear.Īs Red does some checking on the availability and cost of renting the billboards for a year, Mildred turns toward the window and sees a beetle on his back on the sill, legs flaying in the air. It is A Good Man Is Hard to Find by American Catholic novelist Flannery O'Connor.
The camera moves behind young Red Welby (Caleb Landry Jones), who runs the advertising agency, and shows us the book of short stories he is reading. Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand), a bereaved mother of a raped and murdered teenaged daughter, marches into an advertising office to rent out three decrepit billboards along an old highway near her home.
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