The Banshees Of Inisherin is a reflective, melancholic masterpiece
Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and a sweet mini donkey will slyly break your heart in Martin McDonagh's best film to date
Film Reviews Siobhan
Friendship breakups, at least those between longtime pals, hurt like hell. They burn your spirit and leave you displaced, sometimes just as harshly as the end of a romance can. In The Banshees Of Inisherin, Pádraic has been deeply feeling this ache, strolling around his (fictional) island of Inisherin perplexed and in denial alongside Jenny, his loyal donkey companion. Writer-director Martin McDonagh’s soulful masterpiece offers a a windswept elegy on a camaraderie that has reached its inexplicable expiration, as well as melancholic rumination on mortality.
Played by an ever-expressive, career-best Colin Farrell, whose heartrendingly boyish, puppy-dog face and perennially saddened eyebrows redefine the meaning of expressive, Pádraic can’t figure out why his lifelong buddy Colm (a terrific, poetically anguished Brendan Gleeson), “just don’t like him no more.”
Set in the early 1920s on a small island’s imposing shores opposite mainland Ireland, distant explosions constantly remind the Inisherin locals of a civil war on their country’s soil. But to Pádraic, the combat into which he and his immediate community has involuntarily been pulled is the only battle that matters in the universe. The comparably more cultured Colm acts so doggedly dismissive of him that his buddy’s abrupt rejection leaves the uneducated but decent-hearted Pádraic helpless as a bird with broken wings, one that tries to take flight even when the circumstances suggest he’d better stay put for a while.
Everyone, including Pádraic’s worldly sister Siobhan (a gracefully affecting Kerry Cordon), who herself dreams of a better life elsewhere, asks him: Have you been rowing? But how the feck is Pádraic supposed to know? The best thing he figures he can do is to make continuous attempts to fix what he doesn’t comprehend is broken, a persistence that disastrously backfires on Colm, who’s been going through an emotional crisis of depression with his loyal dog at his side. His time left on this earth is rapidly vanishing, Colm feels. And he has nothing of substance to show for himself apart from an escalating sense of despair, which he only confesses to his local priest. Perhaps the gifted musician should focus more on his fiddling and compositions, or find some other hopeful or productive thing to do; anything that doesn’t waste his precious little time on mindless banter with Pádraic.
As unapologetically idiosyncratic and memorable as McDonagh’s heightened genre bender Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was, the British-Irish writer and his characteristically wry sense of humor felt oddly out of place in the American context he conjured, first on the page and then the screen. Neither the grown-up fable he imagined nor the fictional town of Ebbing felt close to something truthful and authentic. In contrast—and just like he did in In Bruges—the filmmaker seems right at home at the impeccably realized Inisherin, despite a slightly on-the-nose civil war metaphor. In fact, he knows and loves this specific place so thoroughly that you can’t help but also adore its uproarious quirks and magnificently sharp-edged landscapes right from the start. In other words, McDonagh wins the audience’s complete trust so quickly that they cannot help but feel utterly shattered when he unleashes his parable’s mounting heartbreaks and delicate tragedies, and with the earned confidence of a storyteller who knows every nook and cranny of his tale inside and out.
That intimate certainty is evident in every single character, from the elegantly observed Siobhan, to an old, acerbic seer (the closest character to an actual banshee) as well as the tormented Dominic (a haunting Barry Keoghan), the abused son of a local police officer who sneakily claims one of the film’s finest scenes through a disarming—if unrequited—romantic confession. It is also palpable in the crafts—the dotingly designed rustic interiors, Ben Davis’ pastoral cinematography blessed by divine rays of light and traditional Irish countryside costumes of cozy knits and hardwearing tweeds kissed by gale and salt. Even the animals are game to elevate this flawlessly envisioned slice of earth—allow me to prophesize that you will fall madly in love with the island’s four-legged creatures, especially Colm’s concerned shepherd dog and the sweet Jenny, who wants nothing more than a peaceful snooze by the fire when Siobhan doesn’t show her out.
Considering McDonagh’s former outings, you won’t be surprised to learn that The Banshees Of Inisherin is wildly funny with laughs that break as frequently as the eponymous island’s magnificent waves. What you might find surprising is the ravaging, tearful storm that brews right beneath that humorous surface as soon as you become acutely aware of it. That storm wants to swallow you whole, spit you out and then dare to mend your broken heart somehow, right after you make peace with your own impermanence. The film convincingly argues that you must let it.
69 Comments
This sounds like a place Father Ted would visit but only reluctantly. It had me at Gleeson and Ferrell together again with the director of In Bruges, I’m sure I’ll laugh and cry in equal measure.
I finally got around to In Bruges a few years ago on the constant recommendation of (now departed, no doubt) commenters around here. What a completely and utterly delightful movie.
*said with genuine compassion* “…cuz youse a herd a fackin’ elephants.” I love In Bruges
Watching Farrell play dense is always a treat.
I finally got to see this and Farrell is great. And, his playing dense in this movie is so different from how he was in In Bruges. He’s incredible.
Yeah, that movie is just brilliant, its really just perfect. Ken : Harry, let’s face it. And I’m not being funny. I mean
no disrespect, but you’re a cunt. You’re a cunt now, and you’ve always been a
cunt. And the only thing that’s going to change is that you’re going to be an
even bigger cunt. Maybe have some more cunt kids.
Harry : [furious] Leave my kids fucking out of it! What have they done?
You fucking retract that bit about my cunt fucking kids!
Ken : I
retract that bit about your cunt fucking kids.
Harry : Insult
my fucking kids? That’s going overboard, mate!
Ken : I
retracted it, didn’t I?
Ken: …still leaves you a cunt.Harry: YEAH I FUCKING GOT THAT
Reading this review, I couldn’t help but think of one of the locals saying something like “I hear you’re a racist now, Father. How’d you get into that sort of thing?”
What is the churchs stance on racism, I don’t have the time to dedicate myself to the old racism.
That would be an ecumenical matter.
Down with this sort of thing!Careful, now.
Also a cute donkey and dog is a extra bonus. Hopefully the tragedies don’t involve anything bad happening to them.
But no Peter Dinklage, at least according to the cast list above. He was the best part of In Bruges! Unless he’s the mini donkey. Or given the setting, a leprechaun.
Not to accuse you of being shortpersonist but Jordan Prentice was (to quote Gleeson) the racist dwarf in In Bruges, not Dinklage.
Oh dear, you are right. I don’t think I would mistake the two as they don’t look particularly alike other than both being short, but my mind sometimes plays tricks on me. Like I remember Donald Sutherland playing Deep Throat in All the President’s Men, but that of course was Hal Holbrook. But Sutherland played a similar whistleblower character in Stone’s JFK and I somehow combined the two.
I think this bears repeating: Peter Dinklage was not in In Bruges.
Watched the “making of” on HBO over the weekend, and looks legit amazing. Looking forward to this so much.
As an Irish, the trailer has been a turn off as I just fear it will be a bit ‘cartoon Irish’. But the reviews seem great.
Damn Kinja graying out youtube embeds.
If only they’d put as much effort into graying out the Kinja inbreds.
Can’t be any worse than that one TNG episode.
Loved this at Fantastic Fest – compelling, darkly funny, heartfelt, beautifully shot, and wonderfully acted. If you enjoyed Waking Ned you’ll find similar “small Irish village” charm here with some twisted notes thrown in for a more complex and confounding flavor.
Waking Ned (Or Waking Ned Divine for some reason in the US) is a really charming movie and comparsions are very nice.
That’s a good one. I also like I Went Down (starring Gleeson) as Irish comedies go.
I hated Three Billboards so much that I’m pretty sure it’s permanently turned me off McDonagh.That’s my contribution to the conversation.
What did you hate about it? I didn’t think it was great, but I don’t necessarily understand all the vitriol thrown at it. To be fair, I also watched it years after it came out, so I think I may have approached it with perhaps a bit more distance than when it came out.
The short version is the film was filled with so much bullshit I simply could not suspend disbelief. But to get into detail:- The film has only 2 Black characters. They have minimal screen time and only serve to establish that Sam Rockwell’s character is racist. One of those characters spends the bulk of the film offscreen after being arrested on bogus charges, and when released at the end of the film, is all smiles like nothing happened.
– The movie completely wasted John Hawkes on a nothing role. Peter Dinklage too, for the most part, but at least he gets one good monologue.- Sam Rockwell’s character, who has a history of police brutality, beats an innocent person and throws them out of a second story window right in front of the new chief of police and half the town, and he’s simply suspended from work rather than being immediately arrested and charged.- Pretty much everything about Rockwell’s character now that I think of it. In reality, he would’ve been fired or transferred to another town long ago for all the brutality and harrassment he doles out. Now you could argue McDonagh could be trying to say something about our broken police system, but I don’t think that’s what the film was going for at all.- The whole family dynamic between McDormand, Hawkes, and Hedges was eye-rollingly cliched. Plus, despite the talent in that scene, Hedges putting a knife to Hawkes’s throat, then everyone sitting back down to keep up appearances was really unconvincing. You could practically hear the stage directions.- The last thing McDormand’s character says to her child is “I hope you get raped and killed!” or something like that. What kind of on-the-nose amateur hour writing is that?This is just what I can remember. It’s been several years. I will give the film credit for having strong performances from McDormand and Harrelson, especially when they’re together (and especially that interrogation room scene when Harrelson suddenly coughs up blood). But otherwise, my wife and I kept looking at each other asking why it was so critically loved.
Rockwell’s character is pretty much how the outside world view America, and especially its police force.It’s one of the most believable parts of the film.
“It’s one of the most believable parts of the film.”It’s all too real.
I despise American police and grew up in a small town in the Midwest where I was stopped multiple times by an overaggressive officer who ended up fired for brutality and misconduct and I found Rockwell’s character impossibly over the top.
“The movie completely wasted John Hawkes on a nothing role”A nothing actor got a nothing role.Big whoop.“In reality, he would’ve been fired or transferred to another town long ago for all the brutality and harrassment he doles out.”Yep, as we know from “reality”, corruption is immediately dealt with and rectified.What planet are you on?“The last thing McDormand’s character says to her child is “I hope you get raped and killed!” or something like that.”No, that’s what the daughter says and the mother spitefully affirms it.People say toxic shit to each other all the time in “reality”.Bizarre that this is one of your criticisms.
“ In reality, he would’ve been fired or transferred to another town long ago for all the brutality and harrassment he doles out.”How are you alive in this world in 2022 and so naive that you could possibly think that?I mean, holy shit, open your fucking eyes for fuck’s sake.
I mean small towns in America can be pretty damn white. It’s not universal but between sundown laws and redlining there have been a lot of policies and tendencies grouping black people into the city.And well, police officers just don’t get fired easily. Police unions are very powerful and dedicate most of that power to ensuring that individual officers don’t face significant consequences for brutalizing the public. It honestly is kinda that bad out here.
McDonagh is trying to say something about the broken police system. The entire setup of the film is someone putting up a billboard to castigate the police for their inaction and inability to solve a crime.As for the “he would have been fired” argument, New York City has cops on the beat even the city and other police have wanted gone who stuck around due to union appeals. To me the idea a small-town cop with even less oversight could keep his job doesn’t seem far-fetched in the slightest.
You seem fun.
Amen, my friend. That movie was just fucking awful. To paraphrase the late, great Roger Ebert: I hated, hated, hated that movie.
All fair points, really. I didn’t love the film but I also didn’t hate it with fiery passion (I think it’s slightly better than 7 Psychopaths, but at least that film wasn’t trying to be an “important film”). To take your points in order:1. The lack of people of color didn’t strike me as inauthentic. I assumed Ebbing was intended to be somehwere in the Ozarks, and like my home state of WV, those areas are almost entirely white. My home town had only a handful of people of color, and most of them were South Asian doctors at the hospital. I believe there were only two African-American families in town, and one moved when I was in Middle School.
2. Could not agree more. I love John Hawkes. He’s so good in everything he’s in. 3 & 4. I take your point. I think he is trying to say something about the system, but it’s very heavy-handed. I suppose I liked Rockwell’s performance enough that it papered over some of the more obvious points the film was trying to make. 5. Agreed, although it didn’t bother me as much as you. 6. Yeah that’s pretty silly. Who says that?
FWIW I also hated Three Billboards and if you had told me Banshees was from the same person I’d have called you a liar. It’s exceedingly great.
I’ll take that into consideration. If it finds itself nominated for Best Picture, I’ll end up seeing it anyway since I watch all the nominees.
I finally got around to watching Banshees and I didn’t hate it! It’s not going to be my favorite movie of the year or anything, but I did enjoy it more than I expected.
I enjoyed it more then the Fish Fucker movie.
I don’t see what the big deal is. She was half-fish herself. The film tells us this when a character mentions how she was found as a child.Anyways, my pick among the nominees that year was The Phantom Thread, though my favorite film of 2018 was Sorry to Bother You.
Sorry to Bother You would have been my pick. I call it The Fish Fucker movie because I was disappointed in it.
He was clearly an amphibian!
Listen, that movie wasn’t actually good (Woody Harrelson aside) but this movie is great. It made me dislike Three Billboards even more in retrospect.
Gleeson and a McDonagh directing will do it for me. Either McDonagh. Farrell and Gleeson together is just the icing on the cake.
Under the headline it reads “Brandon” Gleeson. When are you guys gonna hire some proofreaders?
Saw this at London Film Festival and it’s my favourite of the year so far. Recognisably written by the creator of In Bruges, but feels much more like one of his early plays than any of his films so far. It might be Colin Farrell’s best performance to date, certainly his best since In Bruges. He could have no lines of dialogue and you’d still be able to follow the film because he’s insanely expressive. And the plot constantly throws you for a loop and veers off in unexpected directions. Definitely go and see it.
Let’s go, Brandon, because you’re not in this picture, Brendan Gleeson is.
I refuse to read this article because I am so looking forward to seeing this film with fresh eyes.Glad you gave it an A!
My date at the screening called it ‘bleakly hilarious’. This review sums it up perfectly.
I’d rather go to the Mull of Kintyre, meself.
I’ll respect Scotland more if they leave the UK. Ireland had the balls to do it.
So, is it Brandon or Brendan. Pick one.
Brandan
Brandon GleesonWho?
That’s the Brandon that everyone is always encouraging to go.
Brendan’s agent suggested he do some re-brandin’ to raise his profile and, well, he’s misinterpreted.
Maybe he’s friends with Kerry Cordon.
It’s Brendan Gleeson, not Brandon. No green-blooded Irishman would endure the moniker Brandon.
It’s Kerry Condon, not Cordon. I take this mistake very personally as I met Miss Condon outside outside the Royal Shakespeare Theater in Stratford, in 2001 where she was simultaneously staring in Martin McDonaugh’s “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” and playing Ophelia in “Hamlet” and a more charming, fetching young Irish lass you would not find on this planet.
I didn’t remember her from anything other than Better Call Saul. After seeing her in this, I feel certain that Gilligan et al. wasted her talents on that show. She was wonderful in this movie.
I finally saw this last night on HBO Max. My god…. I was hurt watching this movie as it’s so wonderful and I can feel the character’s pain in this movie (all 4 of them). I hope they win a ton of awards. A and an easy A at that.Wow.
I just watched it last night. It was pretty great but as with a lot of these kinds of movies I was left wanting a little bit more justification for people’s behavior. Some of the stuff in second act (I’m sure you can guess what I’m getting at) seemed somewhat over the top without a little bit more exposition. I suppose if you’re a fly on the wall and you see these people acting in those ways you wouldn’t really know what’s going in their heads and what happens in the second act is not outside of the realm of possibility so, ok I guess. But still the second act choices of one character in particular didn’t fully make sense to me without getting a little bit more sense of what the character was going through.
I took my my own life at almost 50 years old and figured that it’s true if you are stuck with the same friend talking about the same thing 7 days a week for 20+ years one day near your death you will want to do something better with your time (my god what a run on sentence this was).And by Collin Farrell character being so annoying and not letting it go, it made it more clear to me I would have wanted him to get the fuck away from me as well.
THAT decision made sense. It’s what he did to try to get his former friend to stop bothering him that was a bit extreme. Especially the second thing he did.
Just got around to watching it, and I’d give it an AVClub A+, personally.The whole cast is stupendous, and the story is so sweetly melancholic – laced with some absolute existential horror – that by the end I was weeping outright.I’m now saddled with two things – a definite, unrequited crush on Kerry Condon, and the certainty that I, too, would kill the driver of the bread van that killed both of my parents in separate accidents.
I cried as well towards the end. My god the movie made it hard for me to breathe because of how much emotion I was feeling.Yeah that bread van driver, had a killing coming to him! 😉