The Banshees of Inisherin – REVIEW

By MARTIN FABINYI

Martin McDonagh’s latest feature, The Banshees of Inisherin, is his third film featuring Colin Farrell, and his second after his masterful debut feature, In Bruges, to feature both Farrell and fellow Irishman Brendan Gleeson.

The Banshees Of Inisherin is another iron fist inside a velvet glove from McDonagh. What begins as a bucolic tale of friends gone wrong on the fictional island of Inisherin, turns very ugly very quickly, and ends as a dark tale told as to be expected from McDonagh with dashes of humour, pathos and a sadness as thick as the mists that envelop the beautiful sparseness of the island.

McDonagh is such a singular talent that even his sophomore outing, Seven Psychopaths, which failed to ignite at the box office, was a delicious and surreal take on the Hollywood screenwriting system. His next film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, brought Oscar gold to actors Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell, and a host of awards for McDonagh.

His use of language is truly remarkable. As a playwright he had already produced a slew of highly successful and award-winning works before he wrote and directed the superlative In Bruges, where Farrell and Gleeson spar as gangsters marooned in the bland but beautiful Belgian city.

The Banshees of Inisherin, set off the coast of Ireland in 1923, sees lifelong friends
Pádraic (Colin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleeson) who are ripped apart by Colm’s decision to end their friendship and instead devote himself to his music.

Pádraic, played with a sweetness and puppy dog enthusiasm by Farrell, (“a lot like the real Colin Farrell,” remarks McDonagh), can’t understand his former friend’s decision, and won’t leave him alone. For Colm, even the threat of physical injury (to himself), can’t keep Pádraic away.

Then the islanders become involved. There is Peadar Kearney, the local cop whose dislike of Pádraic intensifies after his separation from Colm. Dominic Kearney, the policeman’s son, played by Barry Keoghan, is another person affected by the schism between the two men. When his sister Siobhán leaves for the mainland, Pádraic’s only trusted friend is his donkey, which becomes another casualty of Colm’s decision.

The film is set during the Irish Civil war, but the island of Inisherin is unaffected except for the occasional cannon blast echoing across the water. This is his first historical movie and his only set in Ireland, and the film’s title refers to a ghostly figure from Irish mythology who wailed at night to foreshadow a death in the locale. An elderly woman on Inisherin, Mrs.McCormick, is the physical embodiment of the banshee.

Much like Bergman’s figure of Death in The Seventh Seal, Mrs. McCormick prophesises two deaths that are coming to Inisherin. It is left to the audience to answer the question of who is destined to die.

The Banshees of Inisherin is another astounding work from McDonagh, whose ability to find the cruel, gallows humour in his subjects whilst giving them human, relatable emotions, has made him, over the course of only four feature films (he won an Oscar for his short film Six Shooter in 2006) a member of the pantheon of dark distinctive filmmaking alongside directors including Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese.

★★★★★

Opens Boxing Day.