NATHAN WEINBENDER:
Every day at two o’clock, Pádraic (PAW-rick) leaves his cottage on the quaint Irish isle of Inisherin, knocks on his friend Colm’s door, and they head to the local pub. But one afternoon, Colm ignores Pádraic’s calls. Later, Colm tells Pádraic that he doesn’t want to be friends with him anymore. It’s not because Pádraic has done anything to offend him. Colm simply won’t make time for Pádraic any longer. It’s as if a switch has flipped.
From there, Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin spins a macabre fable about the lies we tell each other, the lies we tell ourselves, and the ways in which we justify cruelty. It is a deeply sad but disarmingly funny movie, and a remarkable feat of writing, performance, setting and tone.
It’s the early 1920s, at the tail end of the Irish Civil War, and the sounds of battle from across the sea occasionally shatter the illusion of Inisherin’s supposed purity. So, too, does the war brewing between sweet, sunny Pádraic (Colin Farrell) and the more worldly, more melancholy Colm (Brendan Gleeson). Despite one protestation after another, Pádraic can’t leave Colm well enough alone, and Colm finally makes a morbid ultimatum that results in violence both physical and emotional.
There must be some kind of irony in a story of men behaving like children being the most grown-up film McDonagh has yet written. He’s best known for In Bruges, which also starred Farrell and Gleeson but as bickering hitmen running from a tragic mistake, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, another film about moral obstinance set in a tiny town harboring darkness and despair.
I’ve admired McDonagh’s earlier films, but they feel like a warm-up for this one. Banshees is so beautifully measured, so confident in its dramatic and allegorical powers, and it is all built upon such a simple but universal truism: that perhaps the most cutting thing someone can tell you is that they don’t like you.
As he tends to do, McDonagh has populated the movie with wonderful and haunting supporting characters, particularly Pádraic’s sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon), who actually dreams of a life far from the judgemental claustrophobia of Inisherin, and Dominic (Barry Keoghan), a young man whose sparks of wisdom belie his childlike countenance. There’s also the busybody who runs the local market, the priest whose confessionals are far from orthodox, and the old crone on the outskirts of the town who may or may not be pushing these characters toward their destinies.
As for Farrell and Gleeson, it’s possible neither has been better. Gleeson’s performance is almost physical: the weight of his existential dread slumping his shoulders, the uncertainty of the future etched in deep lines on his face. Farrell is superb as a man whose appeals for dignity are merely pathetic, who has never had to confront anything significant in his life and is now questioning his entire reason for being.
The Banshees of Inisherin is filled with contradictions: It has the psychic pain and wounded spirituality of an Ingmar Bergman or Robert Bresson movie, but shot through the lens of quirky small town comedies like Local Hero or Waking Ned Devine. It’s certainly the best film McDonagh has made, and it’s one of the best films of the year.
Fro Spokane Public Radio, I'm Nathan Weinbender.
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Nathan Weinbender is a co-host of Spokane Public Radio’s Movies 101, heard Friday evenings at 6:30 PM here on KPBX.