The Banshees of Inisherin review: 2022’s funniest, darkest comedy

Inishelin’s Banshee is a return to familiar territory for writer-director Martin McDonagh. 2008’s pitch-black comedy plays like a spiritual sequel to his thriller. in BrugesThe film is McDonagh’s feature-length debut, starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as hitmen hiding out in a version of Bruges designed to feel like Catholic purgatory.Pharrell and Gleason also lead banshees, another whip-like, ironically funny tale driven by existential horror. This time, they play simpler men, a farmer and a musician respectively, but because they share the same anguish as the assassin, it makes for a movie that continues to dominate the audience mentally despite the charming setting. I’m here.

Finally, McDonagh (more recently, Three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri) tries to root his abstract themes about mortality in the literal details of the story, dissipating the tension. Not pasting is just a small mark on it.

Shot on Ireland’s islands of Inishmore and Achill (in place of the fictional Inisherin), the film feels like a timeless painting. A choir of angels notes the opening scene. This scene follows Padraic his Suylabain (Farrell) who regularly strolls through the leafy lanes of early 20th-century Inisherin. He’s going to check in on his friend Colm Dougherty (Gleeson) and, following his usual routine, invite him out for a beer at the local pub. But the quirky vision of paradise doesn’t last long. Without spending a single moment on their backstory, McDonagh paints a vivid portrait of an inexplicably broken friendship. Because Corum, seemingly overnight, decided he had nothing to do with Padraic at all, and isn’t afraid to be candid. that.

Pádraic, embarrassed by Colm’s sudden refusal, couldn’t help but follow up and keep checking in with him despite everyone’s advice to the contrary. This is where things take an eerie turn. To keep Padraic away for good, Corum threatens to cut off one of his fingers from his own violin hand whenever Padraic tries to talk to him.

Every scene is staged with an eye to emotional repression, listening to rhythmic dialogue and subtext about death and what lies ahead. in Bruges Very attractive. McDonagh continues to focus on Farrell’s bewildered attempts to combine the two. His journey from denial to realization, as he tries to make sense of a relationship that has suddenly descended into turmoil, addresses the potential that closure may remain out of reach forever. The desperate attempt to find answers is as much about discerning Corum’s motives as Padraic deducing potential truths about himself. Who among us is wondering what we did so wrong that we deserve the wrath of others?

But even with these cards seemingly on the table, Farrell’s Pádraic build continues to work in tandem with McDonagh’s meandering text. A self-proclaimed artist, Corum would rather spend his time writing music than having useless conversations, but it will be a while before he can articulate his true reasons. , Pharrell’s performance reflects a shade of potential accusation and the influence of Corum’s cold shoulder. Is Corum too intelligent for Padraic? Padraic too naive? Were there any drunken insults or disrespects he didn’t quite remember?

Either way, Pharrell’s quieter moments paint Padraic as an easily amused man who maintains moving friendships with farm animals. But Pharrell truly shines in the way he deepens even the most drab-looking traits of Padraic. As Padraic begins to introspect, he layers each idiosyncrasy with a recognizable innocence. His compulsions for conversation are polite and superficial, but their seeming inability to piece together the right words or connect the dots between two successive thoughts or feelings makes them Enhanced even when full and rich. Always looking for more than the average person. Again, despite Colm’s more put-together exterior, he’s also always searching. (Often in confession at the local church, he disrespects the gossiping priest too much to find his true enlightenment or introspection.)

Photo: Jonathan Hesshon/Searchlight Pictures

Padraic’s heartbreaking quest for answers is an uphill battle, especially when he begins to interrogate the film’s rich tapestry of side characters, Padraic’s educated sister Siobhan (measured Kelly Condon), the town’s A simple Dominique (killing a sacred deer‘s Barry Corgan, throwing his hat in the ring as a modern-day Peter Lorre), and other pub-goers ride a fine line between non-conflict and nosy. They all seem to get along well with Corum, but Padraic drifts off, wondering if he’s really responsible for the fallout. You can’t help but be convinced by Gleeson’s quietly threatening delivery. A harsh whisper turns even a desperate plea for isolation into a hostile threat.

Both men hold back with emotion, but Pharrell and Gleason are such generous performers that their actual friendship plays into each frame. The low-key affinities between the characters feel even more tragic as the friends begin to part ways. This is especially noticeable at night in the pub, when Corum plays music and Padreik drinks up his sorrows. Those glimpses imbue the film with a borderline romantic warmth, and cinematographer Ben Davis paints it in the twilight of candle and lamplight.

On the other hand, the seemingly timeless setting actually turns out to be quite specific. increase. Real violence never touches the shores of Inishelin. There are certainly claims that the film’s story of brother turning against brother is a metaphor for conflict, albeit a flimsy one. I put it in Corum doesn’t say it right away, but like his idol, Mozart, his sudden desire to create and be remembered seems to come directly from the specter of impending death. (Or, in Irish folklore, which the film touches on lightly, the banshee.

Photo: Jonathan Hesshon/Searchlight Pictures

Both men can’t help but ponder about themselves and what they bring to those around them. One through larger political events and his other through personal grievances. As much as these reflections produce wildly conflicting results, Padreik and Corum’s meeting becomes a hotbed of exacerbated tension about how to navigate a modern world where all seems lost. sea ​​bream. Padraic just wants to exist. In the face of death and loneliness, perhaps neither option is better.

McDonagh channels all these philosophical musings through his sense of the stage and his penchant for the ebb and flow of words. He often describes these verbal and emotional rhythms by focusing between the characters rather than carving them out, as if the film’s visual aesthetic were a compelling melody. capture the The actual music swings in the opposite direction, with Carter Burwell pranking himself by plucking the strings a little more aggressively, as if Corum were weaving the auditory fabric of the film while trying to fend off Padraic’s advances. Adds a sense of mystery.

The film used humorous repetition to deal with its mournful weight and beat down the sheer weirdness of its premise, making it one of 2022’s darkest and funniest films. Into the theme together. As the story unfolds, McDonagh’s absurdist playwright comes to the fore in a way that none of his films have since. in Bruges. banshees retains the dark humor he brought to the 2001 stage play Lieutenant Inishmore, is set in the early 90s but revolves against the backdrop of sectarian Irish conflict and features an animal-loving protagonist also named Padraic. But the problem arises when McDonagh tries to transplant the play’s Padraic and his violent emotional trajectory onto his more restrained film counterpart.

As McDonagh tries to apply words to his ethereal themes of death and memory, Inishelin’s Banshee, it ends the reading like an attempt to ground an intangible mental dilemma on concrete reasoning and definitive emotional paths. Brought about by a last-minute chance. All of this makes the story more didactic and moral than her first two acts suggest.

Still, it’s amazing how the film gets lost while trying to express the inexpressible, trying to verbalize the emotions that Corum struggles to express. After, it’s hard to know how to talk about the lingering fear of how the future will remember it. When you start believing that the is gone, your character becomes stiff and distorted.

No one in this movie is a perfectly good person. Virtually everyone is mean or irreverent in some way. What makes it such a riveting watch is its constant search for similarities in goodness, understanding, or feeling in places and moments where they rarely exist. With an impressive balance of tones, rich performances, and many layers of introspection, Inishelin’s Banshee McDonagh is best represented by creating an intricate piece that captures the strange spectrum of human emotions experienced on the doorstep of death.

Inishelin’s Banshee It hits theaters in limited release on October 21st and will roll out nationwide over the next few weeks.