As the Irish Civil War rages throughout the Emerald Isle, on the small island of Inisherin, a conflict closer to home captures the attention of the tight-knit community. Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) has decided to end a lifelong friendship with Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell) because, in Colm’s opinion, the farmer is dull, and to continue a relationship would drain him of his limited time left to work on his music. Not content to cast aside years of friendship so quickly, Pádraic persists until Colm lays down an ultimatum and the two men create a rift between them that truly is beyond repair. 

Writer/director Martin McDonagh returns to the silver screen with The Banshees of Inisherin released by Searchlight Pictures after his greatly-lauded Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017). While Pádraic and Colm are the bleeding heart and soul of his latest work, the cast is a little too wide to be considered a pure two-hander, welcoming in Kerry Condon as Pádraic’s sister Siobhan, Barry Keoghan as Dominic, a troubled boy who means well but is failed by the time, location, and the abuse of his father, Officer Peadar (Gary Lydon), Pat Shortt as Jonjo the barkeep, and Shelia Flitton as Mrs. McCormick, a strange elderly woman who mumbles Nostradamic nonsense to whoever will lend an ear. The simple story of the falling apart of two friends is thoroughly fleshed out through this eccentric cast of village oddballs, all a little bit pushed to the edge of their own sanity being isolated from the mainland and forced to inhabit the same small parcel together. The story quickly becomes more than just Pádraic and Colm, but rather how this entire microcosm reacts to this disturbance in the everyday ebb and flow of life. 

Farrell is our key into the film as we learn of this falling out with him, and his evocative and at times downright pathetic performance makes it easy to empathize with a man that is losing everything and there is seemingly nothing he can do to stop it. Throughout the 114 minutes, McDonagh punishes Pádraic relentlessly as he whittles away at everything the poor farmer holds dear in his life; notably, his friendship with Colm, then Siobhan, Dominic, and a deeply upsetting sequence involving Jenny the donkey. Unfolding like a perversion of the Book of Job, though it should be stated there are no clear supernatural forces at play here, Pádraic’s affable nature crumbles and darkens as he lashes out against his neighbors and falls into a deep feeling of resentment and anger. Farrell has made a strong career for himself by choosing roles from unique filmmakers that use his character as an emotional punching bag, but it is not often that we ever see him come to such a volatile breaking point. To see a man who started off so meek and humble – a simple farmer – take such a dark and drastic turn is more heartbreaking than just about any of his more emotionally cathartic roles. He gets to show a range not often seen because instead of crumbling and moving on, Pádraic gives way to a seething anger that is as wild and scary, but never overdone even in the grandest moments of the catastrophic spectacle. If Colm, as audiences will learn, is to be seen as a personification of the dangers of depression, Pádraic represents the extreme end of unchecked rage and anger. 

With a knack for writing complicated characters, McDonagh is careful not to paint Colm as an out-and-out antagonist in this story, but as an equally complex person dealing with their own issues as revealed through the confessional window with the priest (David Pearse). Gleeson brings his own dangerous quality to the film, especially late in the story as he lurches down the drive toward Pádraic and Siobhan, with blood dripping from his severed fingers onto the gravel, menacingly captured by Ben Davis’ lens. While audiences will tend to ultimately side with Siobhan as the lone voice of reason throughout this film, it is impossible not to grow in empathy towards Colm as it is revealed he is a man suffering deep despair. McDonagh, both smartly and frustratingly so, does not pry back too many layers of Colm, revealing only that he is focusing on his music to try and quell his despair, despite the harm his new self-isolation is bringing not only to himself but to those around him. It is poignant and painful, an unfortunate reflection of how so many self-medicate their own depression, allowing it to burrow deep and finding false security in the solitude. Having been written during the pandemic, it may be unfair to make sure a blanket statement about depression regarding The Banshees of Inisherin as many friendships faced trials during periods of quarantine, but the themes that McDonagh interrogates here reach far beyond the confines of a “Covid production.”     

If The Banshees of Inisherin sounds like a bleak endeavor, it is, especially since we never get to see the two men enjoy any joy in each other’s company as like in Alfonso Cuarón’s tale of deteriorating friendship Y Tu Mamá También (2001); McDonagh chooses to only show us the pain and turmoil suffered in the aftermath. It should be noted however that The Banshees of Inisherin is not devoid of compassion and that its presence gives way to some of the more tender scenes in the film, and there are still trademark moments of the writer/director’s dark humor sown into the fabric of the film, not dissimilar from another Gleeson-starring mood piece Calvary (2014) by McDonagh’s filmmaker brother, John Michael. Audiences also find some reprieve from the gloom since everyone that inhabits this island town teeters ever so slightly into the realm of absurdity and it plays out like a cast full of supporting characters that breathe life and levity into Shakespearean tragedies. Viewing it through that lens, Mrs. McCormick becomes an even more beguiling role as she wanders across the island muttering her prophecies. From an initial watch, it is hard to ascribe too much weight to her musings as if she were a weird sister from Macbeth or the Ghost from Hamlet, but she brings an air of mystery to the film that, while unsolved, does not feel abandoned by McDonagh; she was crafted with intention and her antics becomes accepted by audiences the same way they become accepted by the people of Inisherin. 

For those who enjoy the craft and construction of The Banshees of Inisherin but are frustrated by the reliance on allegory and emotion, Grímur Hákonarson’s Rams (2015) offers a much more plot-driven, but similarly structured view of a cataclysmic shift in the daily life of a small community when two men experience a falling out. There is something that feels so special about films focusing on these kinds of friendships, even fractured ones because it allows actors to don a rather private persona, one that is deeply caring but purely platonic. It is a different brand of vulnerability as there is none of the baggage that comes with a romantic partnership, nor are these characters present only to stand guard over their families or children as they fill the roles and responsibilities as protectors, but instead they are allowed to examine and interrogate their own fears, concerns, hopes, and dreams with each other under the safety of kinship. They are allowed to be wrong and not fear letting those around them down. But when one loses that, especially so unexpectedly as Pádraic does here, where can they turn in this new moment of crisis? How will they fill the void? In this way, The Banshees of Inisherin plays out like a “coming of middle age” drama as the characters face, not the immensity of their lives ahead of them, but the rapid depletion of their time left.