THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN
Cert 15 ★★★★★
In cinemas now
The dream team of Martin McDonagh, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson reunite for a humdinger of a black comedy, dark as a pint of plain and just as satisfying. And very, very funny.
The trio reunite 15 years after In Bruges but in a very different world – a tiny island off the west coast of Ireland in the 1920s with the Civil War crackling across the water.
Simple Padraic (Farrell) and sensitive Colm (Gleeson) have been best friends for ever, meeting up every afternoon to go to
the island’s only pub. Then Colm decides out of the blue that he wants nothing more to do with Padraic.
“I just don’t like you no more,” he says. “What is he, like, 12?” asks the even simpler Dominic (Barry Keoghan).
There’s a touch of the fairy story – the macabre ones, where horrible things happen – to the way the plot develops.
Fiddle-playing Colm is so adamant about the split that he vows to shear off a finger every time Padraic bothers him, until he has no fingers left. It’s a miracle that writer-director McDonagh crafts something so packed full of laughs from this grim folkloric premise, but he does.
Farrell has never been better, given a script that allows him to move from
befuddlement (with those famous eyebrows doing overtime) to passionate advocacy of himself as a “good man” and, finally, cold fury. Give him the Oscar now.
Gleeson is as dependable as ever and Keoghan, as the village idiot-type, marvellously combines humour and pathos. Underpinning it all is Kerry Condon, as Padraic’s sister, in despair at the toxic masculinity of the men she loves.
Everything else comes together perfectly. The minor characters are magnificent, so is the cinematography, and the scenery and costume design are spot on.
You’ll laugh like a banshee and brood over the darkness for days. This is definitely a contender for film of the year.