Give Colin Farrell the Best Actor nomination at the 2023 Academy Awards, and the win, too, while we are at it. Gleeson and Keoghan can fight for the Best Supporting Actor statue. Kerry Condon deserves her flowers, too.
What I mean to say is, ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ was one of my favourite movies of the past year, but it has taken me a month to completely register and think about the piece of media I consumed on a random afternoon I was back home for the holidays and bored out of my mind. That also means I have been thinking about the same movie for 30 days, give or take.
But it is such a good film.
I myself am still shocked at how delighted I was from beginning to end—and I do admit the accents and scenery had something to do with it. I missed Ireland, and the movie came out the gate swinging, making my soul ache to go back to the Emerald Isle. Now that I’m back “home”, I have composed myself and can string more than three words together to rave about this movie.
When the first shot shows Farrell walking merrily through the island of Inisherin with a colorful rainbow in the background, no one expects what is about to happen. Pádraic is oblivious. The irishman has no idea his only friend in the island has abruptly decided to end their friendship. He finds out soon enough, though. Boy, does he find out. From the moment the bomb drops in front of him until the very end, the film is a rollercoaster of emotions—but these are well balanced ones. Director Martin McDonagh masterfully balances comedy and drama while delivering a brutal message about friendship, and falling out with our peers, and how bitterness and cynicism and spite are corrosive beings that leave no space for kindness. A kindness that is particularly needed in secluded areas and knit-close societies like the one in ‘Inisherin’.
Watching Pádraic relentlessly hold onto the last scraps of his friendship with Colm is painful. He does not understand why his only friend is being so cruel, and neither does the audience. “I just don’t like you no more,” Colm says, and we are just meant to accept that. It’s truly ridiculous, and at the same time, as the Irish Civil War analogy that it is, not a matter of laughter by all means. As film critic David Ehrlich beautifully puts it, “It’s a stirring tragicomedy in which one man’s sympathetic but uncompromising lust for freedom sparks an escalating series of reprisals that can only end in a stalemate or self-immolation. Or both. Or worse.” (IndieWire).
Even more tragic is the story of Dominic, played by Barry Keoghan. I will not be doing any spoilers for anyone that still wants to watch the movie for themselves, but everyone knows what happens to the most innocent characters in dramas like these: they are the ones that suffer the most. It is never fair, and yet.
You are not meant to pick sides, though one finds themself being more sympathetic towards the sad, boring and discarded Pádraic than one does Colm. And that is perhaps why the movie has stuck with me for so long so far. Do I owe people friendship? Do I owe them anything? At what point do I stop gifting people my kindness? When it does not serve me anymore? Is that cruel, or is that just the way it should be? Is it “me before anyone else”, or “think about the hurt you inflict in others”?
1 hour and 54 minutes of existential hardship, this one.
COLM
I just don’t like you no more.
PADRAIC is tremendously hurt by this, but tries not to show
it as best he can.
PADRAIC
You do like me.
COLM
I don’t.
PADRAIC
(pause)
You liked me yesterday!
COLM
Oh did I, yeah? (McDonagh 7)
References
Ehrlich, David. “’The Banshees of Inisherin’ Review: Martin McDonagh’s Wry Tragicomedy Is His Best Film since ‘in Bruges’.” IndieWire, IndieWire, 17 Oct. 2022, https://www.indiewire.com/2022/09/the-banshees-of-inisherin-review-1234758446/.
McDonagh, Martin. ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’. 2022.