Directed by Martin McDonagh. Starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan.
It is 1923 and the Irish civil war is raging, but on the remote island on Inisherin all appears calm, until one day folk musician Colm Doherty (Gleeson) abruptly begins ignoring his long-time friend and drinking buddy Pádraic Súilleabháin (Farrell). His reasoning seems to be that Pádraic is dull and Colm wants to spend the remainder of his life composing music and trying to achieve something that will outlive him.
Pádraic doesn’t take rejection well, and though he has companionship in his sister Siobhán (Condon) and Dominic (Keoghan) the troubled son of the local constable, he misses his friend and the fact that he can’t get his head around why Colm should want to cut him out of his life sees him continue to try and mend fences, even though Colm continually tells him to leave him alone.
What starts as a mild disagreement quickly escalates when Colm says he’ll cut off one of his fingers every time Pádraic tries to talk to him.
It’s hard to believe it’s been five years since Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, or that this is only McDonagh’s fourth feature length film in almost fifteen years, but one thing is clear, his films are always worth the wait and The Banshees of Inisherin is no exception.
McDonagh excels in giving us something different each time, and this shares little with his other films, apart from the wickedly dark humour and obvious reuniting of Farrell and Gleeson from In Bruges. This is an original tale that starts off feeling like it might be a gentle comedy before venturing to some very dark places.
McDonagh’s writing is superb, and he can find humour in the darkest moments, as well as sadness, and at times this is laugh out loud funny, at others it’ll break your heart. For such a simple idea he weaves an intricate story that has a lot to say about male friendships, loneliness, the bleakness of growing old and even the Irish civil war itself (what else is Colm and Pádraic’s falling out if not a microcosm of the wider conflict taking place on the mainland?)
The cast are wonderful, but special mention really has to go to Farrell and I think it’ll be criminal if he isn’t at least nominated for an Oscar. There’s such sadness in his big brown eyes, disbelief that his best friend has abandoned him and you feel every moment of his heartbreak. Pádraic is such an innocent, decent person that it’s impossible not to feel for him, and it makes his eventual descent into something less noble all the more sorrowful. If the pain etched into Farrell’s face at various points doesn’t break your heart then frankly you must have no soul.
Gleeson perhaps has the harder tole because Colm isn’t as naturally engaging as Pádraic, but Gleeson still manages to make you, if not like Colm, then perhaps understand him, a man who’s woken up one day and realised his own mortality, realised that after he dies no one will remember him for long. Of course this makes certain actions of his in the film seem even more shocking than they already are. Colm is clearly a troubled man, a depressive, possibly even bipolar given how engaged he can get in his music one moment, yet how desperately unhappy he seems at others.
Condon plays Siobhán perfectly as a woman destined for bigger things than some tiny windswept island. Clearly the smartest person on Inisherin and torn between her desire for a better life, and her love for her brother.
In some respects the character of the village dullard is something of a trope for films and TV set in remote Irish communities, but even here McDonagh does something a little different, and Keoghan is spot on as Dominic, a man more innocent and less creepy than you initially think, not to mention the victim of horrible abuse.
The film is beautiful to look at. McDonagh and cinematographer Ben Davis making wonderful use of the natural landscape, even if sometimes that natural beauty is the backdrop to some very man made brutality.
An engaging and funny character study laced through with darkness, and there’s even a hint of something otherworldly in the presence of Mrs McCormack. Is she just a portentous old woman, or is she one of the banshees of the title? McDonagh doesn’t give you any easy answers, because it isn’t that kind of film.
A fine script, fine direction and a great cast make this a must see film, just don’t expect to come out full of the joys of spring at the end.
werewolves on the moon 