In movies, for the most part, they go to let go of unattractive reality for something better. Two unimaginably different people in front of the credits will fall in love, a loser will become rich or a man with a steel shield and steel eggs will save everyone. And while the audience is watching all this, somewhere in their city (let’s say he’s a big one) an addict robs an old woman to buy a dose and later die of an overdose. Somewhere a husband beats a bullied wife. Somewhere a mother beats her child. Somewhere the police are getting a statement. Somewhere a gang rapes a woman ... and so on. That's our reality. It is so bad that just thinking about it is dangerous for mental health. And people naturally try to distance themselves from it, not think. It would be wrong to condemn them for that. A girl once complained to me about a movie about orphans. “Why do they shoot this? This movie makes me feel bad and I want to feel good. Don't let them do that. However, acute social cinema is still more valuable than entertainment, even if someone wants to cry from it.
Perhaps viewers went to "Three Billboards" for a beautiful story. And they are fed from the screen that very unsightly reality. But no, they literally put that reality down their throats. The characters of the film are a public slice of the provincial south of the United States. They all suffer in their own way and are all disgusting in their own way. There is no division into good and bad. Finding a positive character is hard. Even the secondary ones are disgusting. They are all products of cruelty and they all multiply cruelty because of what has fallen to their lot. The film leaves a painful impression. The director made an open final, thereby depriving the audience of the denouement and as a result of detente. How strange the film was liked by many. And the widespread adoption of a problematic film cannot but rejoice.
It is worth noting that the problems of the film are often specifically American, it is difficult for our viewers to understand and appreciate it. Americans grow up with it, live and deal with it all their lives. For us, this is news, and for them it is household.