"Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," New Yorker Review

Excerpt: "How does a film so empty of emotional intelligence, so devoid of any remotely honest observation of the society it purports to serve, sweep the board on prizes? This in a time when intolerance and gun violence are rife, when both would seem to demand a more serious response. “Three Billboards” gives us a world in which cleverness is all-important. All of the confrontations involve quips; the characters are intelligent only insofar as they know how to attack one another. It is at once one of the slickest and sickest moments in a movie that constantly encourages its audience to believe that it is watching something serious while it is actually being fed a diet of eye candy, violence, and standard repartee. And this, it appears, is what we want: to be on the winning side in our goodness and our toughness. As with “Rambo” years ago, and as with the cowboy Westerns of the past. We love winners. Watching such films, we become them. What makes this version sicker is its claim to moral superiority at the expense of a community that it has taken no time to examine.  We live in brutal, self-righteous, entertaining times."

The following review is packed with"spoilers." If you plan to see "Three Billboards" I encourage you not to read it.

The Feel-Good Fallacies of “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-feel-good-fallacies-of-three-billboards-outside-ebbing-missouri?google_editors_picks=true