Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell
Review by Brad Balfour
Film: “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Director: Martin McDonagh
Cast: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan
With awards season looming, one movie is copping lots of noms and early awards. That odd film is Martin McDonagh’s bleak story of a broken bond between buddies, “The Banshees of Inisherin.” If any recently released movie reveals the foibles of dumb men trying to be friends for no clear reason other than they live in the same isolated Irish town then it’s this one. Master manipulator Mcdonagh pits two seemingly close and old friends against each other. But are they simply friends because they live in same small village with few people in an era where the only really media is newspaper and a little radio so there not much of an info flow to inform anyone of life beyond their home?
The son of Irish parents, British-born Mcdonagh is known as an acclaimed modern playwrights whose work is celebrated for its absurdist black humor which often challenges modern theater aesthetics. Through a career that spans over two decades, he’s won numerous awards including an Academy Award, four BAFTA Awards, three Laurence Olivier Awards, and nominations for five Tony Awards. This veteran dramatist, screenwriter and director beautifully tells a subtly complex story about Ireland, men and triumph at a time of distress — but only by a woman.
Set on a small, fictional Irish island in 1923, “Banshees” looks at the fallout from a friendship severed by local fiddler Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson), a quiet contemplative musician, who decides he has had enough of the maundering babble of Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell) a dairy farmer with a pet miniature donkey and beautiful, smart sister Siobhán Súilleabháin (Kerry Condon). In so many words, Doherty tells him, to shut up, piss off and leave him alone. His tacit excuse is that he’s realized that Pádraic’s boring, dull banter distracts from really making the music he’s meant to make before he’s gotten any older.
Despite the story’s simple nature and stripped down structure taking place on a desolate island isolated from real-world concerns — there’s a civil war being wage on the main island — the film lands somewhere in the realm of brilliance. Without seeming so, McDonagh immerses an audience so deeply into its world and its inhabitants so that it becomes genuinely disoriented — especially upon seeing the film more than once.
The more Doherty pushes Pádraic away the more the addled “buddy” pushes back. Not even threats that if he does, Colm will chop a finger off each time he tries to speak with him. When that doesn’t daunt Súilleabháin, things turn drastic and then, further drastic. All this is written and performed in such a matter-of-fact way that it becomes even more absurd than it seems by the surface concept of it. Without revealing the sad, tragic consequences of this compact narrative, it’s evident that the only sensible person on the island is about to leave — Pádraic’s sister Siobhán. She pleads with her brother to join her in Dublin as she leaves for a job in a bookstore but it’s to no avail. Other characters that inhabit the island are equally pathetic sad and/or absurd such as Barry Keoghan’s character Dominic Kearney.
With such master actors as Gleeson, Farrell and Condon — in fact, all of the cast — the film comes alive and feels totally genuine. In fact, its McDonagh’s mastery of casting and of fomenting strong performances that make his films (such as “In Bruges”) and plays (such as “A Behanding in Spokane”) so remarkable.
Despite all the attention the film is getting, it still feels like it’s a special secret one shared only by joining a special club where if you get it then you’re the insider. So then you can go down to the pub and share a pint — and be glad you’re not living in Inisherin.