Disclaimer: I am a huge fan of Frances McDormand and thus anything I say about her or a movie she is in will necessarily be colored by my admiration of her from the get go.
Having said that, I did not like this movie. Overall, I found it mean, sad and spiteful. The world is a mean, sad and spiteful place but there are moments of grace and hope in the real world. I did not find any of that in this movie.
But the characters, each individual person, I liked them. The Sheriff, Bill Willoughby, was sad but he was trying to do his job and he admitted he failed at it often. Mildred Hayes was a mother who wanted justice and would go to any lengths to find that justice but she didn't understand that sometime you simply cannot find it. Sometimes justice is unattainable. Jason Dixon was simply a bad, prejudiced, mean cop. His miraculous transformation was a joke.
Simply put, I walked out of this movie wondering why I wasted the time. I am not one who wants a happy ending, who wants glowing sentiment, who needs justification for actions in a movie. Violence doesn't bother me when it is part of the construct. Darkness, fine, bring it on. But for all the great acting in this movie, there was not one glimmer of rationalization for the plain meanness that was shown. Yes, I get the mother's need for justice and her need for vengeance. But to take it as far as she does, that needed to be stopped. Maybe it's just a reaction on my part for the recent shooting deaths at a high school in Florida ...... sometimes evil happens and we cannot always fix that. Mildred cannot fix what happened. She needs to back off.
This movie will win some Academy Awards, there's no doubt about that. I wager Frances will will best actress and Woody Harrelson for best supporting actor and perhaps best original screenplay for the writer. I can't deny any of those. But I wish the movie had been less mean and more meaningful.
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