In The Area of Critical Commentary: "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" (NO SPOILERS)

Let's say that a Blue Ribbon Panel of scientists and nutritionists determined that after an exhaustive study of all foods they had determined that because of the unique balance of vitamins, minerals, and other important nutrients, mashed turnips was the absolute perfect food, and that eating it every day would assure sound health, clear skin, avoid memory loss, and a heightened sexuality if you ate a big plate of them every single day.  You know what?  No one, or at least not me, would eat them because mashed turnips don't taste any good!!

So it is with the awkwardly titled movie "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri".  This movie has already received multiple Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards nominations, and it will undoubtedly receive similar acclaim when the Academy Award nominations are announced next month.  The acting is superb, the direction is great, it is artfully shot.  All true.  Vitamins, minerals, and nutrients, to be sure, but when it is a movie about ugly events, with ugly characters, you end up with an ugly story that just doesn't taste good.  Perhaps I just don't like "dark" movies (some critics have labeled this a "dark comedy"; trust me, there is nothing comedic about this movie), someone suggested to me.  Not true. I can handle "dark", but "Three Billboards...." goes way beyond dark.  I can honestly say that there is not a single character in this entire movie that comes across as sympathetic or likeable.

Here's the story: A mother (Frances McDormand) whose daughter was the victim of a violent, and still unsolved crime, puts up three billboards asking the local police chief (Woody Harrelson), essentially, why are you dragging your feet and why isn't this crime solved?  This raises the ire of the third main character in the movie, a racist, drunken, incompetent cop (Sam Rockwell).

I will say this, the three actors all do a great job in their roles.  I love Frances McDormand, an Oscar winner twenty-one years ago for playing Marge Gunderson in "Fargo" - now THAT was a perfect example of a "dark" movie that was actually, you know, good - and she will probably score another Oscar nomination for this one, and she may well win, but, wow, let's just say that her Mildred Hayes in this one was no Marge Gunderson.

Good acting in an unpleasant movie only serves as an attempt to put a shine on a road apple, and as the old saying goes, you can't polish a road apple.

One star from The Grandstander, and that is there only for the good will that Frances McDormand has built up for me over the course of her career.