Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

It’s been seven months since Angela Hayes was discovered raped and murdered outside her small hometown of Ebbing, Missouri. Because of what she believes is the police inaction on the case, frustrated and angry Mildred Hayes, Angela’s divorced working class mother, rents the three no longer used billboards, despite the cost of the rental which she really cannot afford, on a local road just outside of town for one year, the billboards to have messages in simple, bold faced text highlighting that police inaction on the case. Mildred, via the billboards, names Chief Bill Willoughby directly as although not the lead investigator, he is the chief and the “buck stops with him”. Using his name is also despite Mildred knowing what is probably the worst kept secret in town: that he is suffering from a terminal case of pancreatic cancer, his eventually passing which would leave him survived by his loving wife and two adolescent daughters. The police’s lead investigator in Angela’s case, Jason Dixon, is openly racist, misogynistic, homophobic and a mama’s boy, who prefers to read comic books than do any meaningful work. With the billboards the highest profile action on the matter in months, the rhetoric and associated actions ratchets up on both sides with each having his or her supporters who are not afraid to show that support largely through intimidation on their own initiative. Any support Mildred gets, which does not include from her abusive ex-husband Charlie who is in a relationship with nineteen year old Penelope, is despite she not being easy to like outside of this situation, she and Angela who did not have the best of mother/daughter relationships. As both sides try to protect their position, the fact of Angela herself may get lost in the process.