So I saw Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and I liked it quite a bit. If the buzz building to the Oscars comes true, it will be the latest in a line of fairly strong Best Picture winners (though it's not my favorite of the batch, which is an honor that definitely goes to Shape of Water). So, naturally, there's already been a backlash against the film by general audiences, particularly surrounding it's themes and it's antagonist of sorts, Officer Jason Dixon. (If I don't know any better, I'd suspect that being seen as a frontrunner directly poisons audience expectations, given that this also happened to La La Land and The Revenant, which were widely seen as frontrunners.)
While I certainly see why some people dislike it, I definitely disagree with the primary form of criticism, which tends to go along the line of, "This film redeems a racist, violent thug character with no real comeuppance." To avoid spoiling too much until the next paragraph, that's all I'll say for now. To avoid spoilers, please stop here. Read my other posts, which are also very good. If you've seen Three Billboards or don't care, please continue.
Still here? Sick. Anyway, Jason Dixon is established as violent, short-tempered and somewhat bigoted, with many accusing him of torturing a black prisoner while the man was in custody. Over the course of the film, we get more of an explanation for Dixon's behavior and he begins to come to terms with his own reputation. As part of the film's recurring theme of redemption, Dixon strives to be a better man and a better cop by the end of the film, which sort of sums up the backlash in a longer paragraph. The problem with said backlash is that Dixon doesn't find the redemption he seeks, and in fact regresses to his old ways in the film's final moments.
Around the film's midpoint, Dixon gets a heartfelt speech from Willoughby, which has him resolve to be better as he realizes how many people he's hurt. But Dixon spends the rest of the film assuming one good deed will undo his bad, which is proven to be untrue. The man he suspects of being the culprit of the crime that kicked off the film's plot isn't guilty, and Jason is immediately confronted with the idea that redemption is harder than it looks. So what does he do? Now, if he was actually a better man, he'd keep it and go back to being a cop, but Dixon instead quits the police force for good and convinces the film's protagonist to help him hunt down and kill Dixon's suspect, who is definitely guilty of something. Does that sound like something a "good cop" would do?
Not only does Dixon not really change his ways, no one really forgives him either. The film's few black characters continue to treat him with skepticism, the man he directly hospitalized rebuffs his attempts to apologize, and the main character herself only softens because he's helping her personally. Three Billboards is a film about forgiveness and letting go of anger, but by the end, poor Dixon never really manages to achieve either, for himself or from others.
Three Billboards isn't a perfect film, by any means. It's a bit too long, sometimes overly crass, and it peaks at the midpoint with a spectacular character moment. But do I think the film deserves complaints because a villain (of sorts) tries to change himself and arguably fails? Not really. I just think it's a case of people being angry that a character that is traditionally unsympathetic in most forms of media gets deconstructed in a way that reminds you, "Hey, everyone in this film is still a human being."
No comments:
Post a Comment