Written and directed by Martin McDonagh
Starring: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, and Barry Keoghan
Rated R for brief graphic nudity, some violent content, language throughout
Runtime: 1 hour 49 minutes
Limited Release on October 21

by Olivia Hunter Willke, Staff Writer

Martin McDonagh is home. The Banshees of Inisherin takes place on an island, just off the coast of Ireland, and reunites McDonagh with the dynamic duo of his first film (In Bruges), Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. Unlike his last, Oscar-winning output, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, no grand, morally dubious statements are being made here. What Banshees does best is stay devastatingly small, rotating around the lives of Inisherin’s few inhabitants, tucked away and defined by routine. Until one day, the routine is disrupted. Suddenly, Colm (Brendan Gleeson) ends his lifelong friendship with Pádriac (Colin Ferrall). “I just don’t like you no more,” Colm declares. Determined to repair the relationship, Pádriac recruits the help of his sister, Siobhan (Kerry Condon), and the island's young, dull troublemaker, Dominic (Barry Keoghan). But as things escalate, a war breaks out between the two men, causing significant consequences for all.

It's a film that feels between time, the lush countryside emerging from the coastal, wind-swept fog like a fantasy. The timelessness is accentuated by people living as they always have, forming community, working, visiting one another when the opportunity arises, convening to worship some higher power, and drinking in each other's company. But, every once in a while, canons fire on the mainland. A character looks over at the flashes, across the water, at a distance that is not distant enough to feel anything but dread. The year is 1923 and the Irish Civil War is approaching its end. The drama on the island is mimicked in those moments. Although not the scale of a civil war, the raging of these two men feels existentially encompassing. The sharp, darkly comedic dialogue conceals enormous pain, some of which feels like it has been buried for a lifetime, only surfacing after others’ sadness ripples outward and toward them. The laughs that emerge from the audience are the type one takes a breath after, to regain a sense of composure and prepare yourself for what’s to come. In classic McDonagh fashion, there must be a burst of violence to propel the story forward, some mishap or tragedy of bodily harm or mutilation. This comes in the form of another declaration by Colm. Every time Pádriac ignores Colm’s request to be left alone, every time Pádriac opens his mouth to speak to him, Colm will remove one of his own fingers with shears.

In his moments of bewilderment and hurt, Ferrall’s Pádriac resembles an injured puppy who has been abandoned and left to care for itself, unable and unaware of how. His strong eyebrows frequently peaking in the middle of his forehead, sloping down above his big, wounded eyes. He's a lad who hasn't got much: his farm, his sister, his friend. To lose one of those is simply too much to bear. His boyish perspective of the world around him is reflected in the company he keeps after Colm’s abandonment. Barry Keoghan’s scene-stealing Dominic tics and jerks as he wonders and wanders about the world. Considered dimwitted by the island’s residents, he is often the most perceptive of the bunch. Upon learning of the rift, he asks Pádriac of Colm, “What is he, twelve?” Kerry Condon’s Siobhan brings warmth to the cold isle. She is a fierce protector with a strong sense of duty, especially in regard to Pádriac. They even sleep in the same room of their wee, flame-lit cottage, twin beds side by side. She fusses and bemoans the men of the island, longing for much more herself.

To a certain extent, Banshees feels apologetic on McDonagh’s behalf. After the generalized, misguided examination of American violence and racism that was Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, he is sticking with what he knows well instead of opining about the political hellscape of a foreign land. The police officer in this film is not a violent racist promptly and thoroughly redeemed, but a raging child abuser who uses excessive force with no atonement on the horizon. There are no lengthy conversations with garish CGI deer, but instead, quiet moments with a precious miniature donkey, Jenny (played flawlessly by Jenny, the very real, precious miniature donkey). The women are not merely figures to inflict violence upon or matriarchal caricatures, but headstrong human beings with deep inner lives and vivid emotional understanding. Comparatively, there is refreshing frivolity here, a feeling of returning to what one knows and dissecting its organic twists and turns, unfolding without manipulation. Let it go where it goes.

The natural rhythms of story and plot are accentuated by the quick-witted, stylized writing, but Banshees truly belongs to its actors. Such realness is brought to these characters that you speculate about their lives long after the credits have rolled. Most prominently, one muses if they are okay, well. Thriving or ruined, adapting or succumbing to the forces of one another? Does Pádriac’s emotional wound ever heal or does it grow larger by the day? Does his loneliness swallow him? Is his happy-go-lucky charm erased entirely, or is a spark ignited again, growing as time passes? And Colm. Colm doesn't seem to have a weight lifted off of him after his proclamation of the friendship’s end, quite the opposite. Colm dismantles one of his few tethers to some sense of grounding. Why? He propels himself down this path, perhaps because he sees no other way but destruction. Maybe he thinks genius will arise from the chaos instantaneously, like lightning striking his pen while composing a violin tune. Or maybe his claim that he wants to be remembered for more than meaningless conversations day-in-day-out is false. Maybe, in the smallness of his life, he wants what most of us who are unhappy and unfulfilled want – to disappear.