Filmsane

You probably have heard about this amazing and talented lady. I’m talking about Frances McDormand of course. Well the acting goddess is part of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and is of course a strong contender for the second Oscar win in her career. She already won her Best leading actress Oscar in 1997 for Fargo and I’d love to see her win her second Oscar this year. Why? Because I believe none of other actress performances come close to that of Frances. Her portrayal of the bitter, angry mother on a mission to get some answers is probably one of her finest works to date.

I will elaborate in lengths about her and the movie itself in my upcoming review, but for not let me take one piece of the movie and tell you why I think should buy Frances her second Oscar.

That piece is actually a scene, and it’s probably most heart-braking one in the entire movie.

But let me brief you on what happens before that particular scene. Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) is a divorced mother still grieving the violent rape and murder of her teenaged daughter Angela, seven months prior. Angry over the lack of progress in the investigation, she rents three abandoned billboards near her home, which in sequence read: “Raped while dying”, “And still no arrests?”, and “How come, Chief Willoughby?”

That doesn’t sits well among the people in Ebbing, and especially with Sheriff Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) and Officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell). What begins as a chess move on her part to get some answers about her daughter’s death, will end up to be a war between her and the police.

Which brings me to the scene in question. Those billboards that Mildred put out at the beginning of the move, will sadly find them in a blaze of fire later on in the movie. She will try her best to put out the fire with her fire extinguisher, but will fail to do so since the fire extinguisher is small and apparently used before. Her son Robbie (Lucas Hedges) will drove off to get a bigger fire extinguisher and will successfully put out the fire himself on the second billboard, but something will happen on the third.

He will actually try to convince her to abandon it, and leave them burn, saying that it’s too late but she will ignore his pleas, and after bickering over the fire extinguisher she utters a terrifying scream only a grieving mother can bare to say:

Robbbbiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Her face is filled with sorrow and anger, she’s on a verge of tears and nervous break-down and you want to give her a hug. I swear as I watched that scene I started to cry uncontrollably and I couldn’t keep my composure for the next 20 minutes or so. Frances is brilliant in the rest of the 110 minutes, but those 5 minutes of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri are enough to do 2 things.

To make you sob like a little child and to acknowledge how deserving is Frances McDormand of a second Academy Award. I know….Meryl, and Saoris and Margot are all great, but Frances is something else. She’s disturbingly good in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.