Have you ever had a friend in your life for many years, and you might see each other or talk on the phone once a week and everything was grand? But then you miss a lunch date or don’t reschedule a golf weekend or are out of town and don’t send Christmas greetings. A few months go by and you realize you haven’t seen or spoken to that friend in over a year. “What happened?” you think to yourself. “Everything was going fine.”
Now, instead of that slow steady drop off period over a year, imagine that friendship just ends one random day for no reason at all. How would you react?
That’s the ingenious comedy and tragedy set up in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” the new film by writer/director Martin McDonagh, which takes a patient and insightful look at the Irish Civil War — and socio-political conflicts in general — through the microcosm of a friendship breaking up.
With the unforgiving, or perhaps indifferent, Irish seaside as the background to a gorgeous island off the country’s west coast, there is a sense of place and history that wholly grounds this story. It’s not only real and human, it’s relatable, for good reasons or bad.
On that remote island off the west coast of Ireland in 1923, the dim, dull and well-meaning Pádraic (played by Colin Farrell) is devastated when his pal Colm (Brendan Gleeson) suddenly puts an end to their lifelong friendship with no reason other than he doesn’t like him no more.
Pádraic sets out to repair the damaged relationship by any means necessary, only strengthening Colm’s resolve while his caring sister Siobhán (Kerry Condon) and a troubled local boy Dominic (Barry Keoghan) attempt to defuse the pair’s escalating battle.
While Pádraic continues to follow, talk to and interrupt his attempts at peace and solitude, Colm soon delivers an ultimatum: every time Pádraic bothers him or tries to talk with him, Colm will cut off one of his own fingers with a pair of sheep shears.
As a lauded playwright and filmmaker who revels in absurdist black-humor stories like “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and “In Bruges,” McDonagh doesn’t shy away from more taboo topics or controversial fodder for his stories, telling them in bitter and cynical but undeniable hilarious ways.
Now, in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” McDonagh illuminates what a bitter and cynical community does with the taboo and controversial gossip happening all around them. There are plenty of benefits to living in a small, close-knit community, but when the rumor mill begins churning, it can be a near impossible thing to shut down.
Farrell and Gleeson are excellent throughout, back together 14 years after their first team up in “In Bruges.” Their real life friendship shines through their chemistry here, even if the film never really shows what that relationship was before.
Colm’s companion of choice is a dog — reliable and obedient — while Pádraic’s is a donkey named Jenny — quite literally an ass. Both men are suffering in their own way, but the continual jabs at each other and laughs prompted from a wry wit, or lack thereof, is endlessly entertaining.
On the other hand, the film is endlessly sad in its exploration of how and why breakups like Colm and Pádraic’s happen and what life looks like afterward. One of them is suffering from a devastatingly toxic environment while the other experiences devastating loneliness. Living on an island of a hundred people is bound to do that, but neither man nor the rest of their islanders seem to want to do anything about it.
As the film’s events play out in slow, meditative fashion fitting of rural life, with the cannon fire and smoke from the mainland visible across the sea, it becomes clear everyone on Inisherin is either toxic or lonely. And as is pointed out several times, no one has any kindness left to give.
Whether feuding on a fictional Irish island, in the centuries-long conflicts in Ireland or on the nightmarish 21st century landscape of the internet, a little niceness — like looking after your friend’s dog or donkey — can go a long way.
