This time of the year is a great time for cinema. Martin McDonagh hasn’t made many films, but they are always worthwhile when he does. The Banshees of Inisherin is a wholly bizarre but very effective dark comedy about the changing seasons of life and how our personal relationships fit or don’t fit in.
One man’s understanding of his life begins to crumble when his longtime friend suddenly wants nothing to do with him.
I love that McDonagh takes a simple and understandable idea, like outgrowing some friendships as we get older, and takes it to an absurd extreme. He has always had a flair for the dramatic and has written excellent characters, both of which are still true here. Still, this story feels more earthy than some of his other work (for lack of a better word) and might even be more of a metaphor for his own experience.
Stories like In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths have great, colorful characters in a gritty but romanticized world of professional assassins and embrace that. It’s fertile soil for having fun with character writing, but what we saw with Three Billboards was a shift toward more narrowly focused storytelling with more individual depth. That curve has led to an even more stripped-down story, in this case, setting things on the sleepy fictional island of Inisherin off the coast of Ireland in the early 1920s. Devoid of any modern technology, we are free to focus on the very personal relationship that is the catalyst for the whole film.
While I haven’t read anything to confirm it, this seems personal to McDonagh and if that’s the case, it makes sense that he went to Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson who were there at the beginning for In Bruges. Farrell was also in Seven Psychopaths, so maybe he’s something of a muse, but there is symbolism in bringing Gleeson in to play the other half of the coin in this story.
Gleeson is an incredible actor and this is a role that takes full advantage of his range and his unique screen presence. He’s a powerhouse on screen and he wields his character’s disdain like a whip, slack until given energy. It is his character, Colm, who initiates the break between the friends and has a more precarious position. He’s managing guilt, remorse, ambition, and plenty of fear, and he breathes genuine life into that cluster of emotions. If there is a performance that elevates this film to another plain, it’s his.
That doesn’t mean Farrell wasn’t good. He has to play a character whose identity is compromised when his oldest friend wants nothing to do with him anymore. Can you imagine? His character, Pádraic, is a nice but dull fellow, but it’s his inability to handle change that defines him and this story. Farrell plays him with a sympathetic edge but his refusal to acknowledge someone’s boundaries gradually chips away at the facade and reveals a selfish man who can’t see beyond himself. McDonagh frames it like two pendulums that were once in rhythm but still occasionally pass one another on their downward swings.
If I maintain that analogy, Kerry Condon is the film’s metronome as Páraic’s sister Siobhan. She is a steady presence in the middle that embodies the characters’ qualities of both and shows the audience that neither of the other two is entirely right in their behavior. As we sit back and sort of instinctively takes sides in the dispute, it’s easy to side with her. My favorite thing about her performance was the undeniable ambition she brings to the character. She wants more out of life in many different avenues, but she translates the “want” part of it with authority.
Barry Keoghan is one of my favorite young actors and he plays the town fool, Dominic, but there’s more to him that I won’t quite get into. He was great though and, while comic relief isn’t quite accurate, he provided some much-needed, simple levity to lighten the mood. However, his uncomplicated and unfiltered delivery cuts through any pretentious notions of the other characters. It was a great bit of character writing and a strong role for Keoghan.
The location filming is quite breathtaking and Ben Davis pairs some great landscape cinematography with low-light medium shots that capture the unrefined nature of the environments. That’s all complemented beautifully by Carter Burwell’s gothic music. It’s not the kind of original score that grabs you, but it has haunting effectiveness.
I love dark comedies, but this is so much more. It took me a little while to process just how much I enjoyed it, but that’s the kind of film it is. I didn’t get around to writing about it right away but I am glad. Now I want to go back and watch all of McDonagh’s other films again.
Recommendation: If you are a fan of McDonagh’s work, this is the natural evolution of the curve he’s been traveling on. Even if you aren’t a fan or haven’t seen his work, there is plenty to take from this. See it if you can.
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