Formula: In Bruges / The Break-Up
Break ups are hard. Some people move far away to avoid the awkwardness. Even in a large city it can be hard to avoid each other. In a small community, it must be torture. The Banshees of Inisherin ups the stakes by making it even more awkward. Rather than a split with a significant other in a small town, what if it was your best friend?
Padraic (Colin Farrell) is a nice and uncomplex man who lives on the small Irish isle of Inisherin. One day, his best friend, musician Colm (Brendan Gleeson), decides he no longer wants to be friends with him. It’s abrupt and complete. Colm doesn’t even want to talk to Padraic any longer. It’s very abrupt and Padraic spends the rest of the film trying to understand this change in circumstance. It’s an unexpectedly shocking film, really. There aren’t many films about the loss of a friend. Friends don’t break up. They fade away or are torn apart by more powerful factors like death or moving away. Friends don’t decide to stop being friends. That’s not how it works, and it’s terrifying.
I’m in my mid-30s and realize that I’ve pretty much made all my friends now. These are the friends I’m working with. I’m ok with that. I like my friends, but if I suddenly lost them all one day for no apparent reason, I don’t know what I’d do. In Banshees, it’s even beyond that. Padraic is in his 40s. He doesn’t have a large pool of people to hang out with. He has what appears to be a nice pattern of going to the pub with his friend every day. And it’s suddenly lost. That must be so destabilizing, and the most he ever finds out about why is that Colm finds him dull. I’m watching this thinking that it's 1923 rural Ireland: everyone is dull.
This is an absurd film. Absurd in a way that seems very specific to Irish playwrights turned writer/directors like Martin McDonagh (this film’s director) and John Patrick Shanley. The extremity of Colm’s change-of-heart and the ways he escalates it throughout the film are crazy. That’s McDonagh’s M.O.: start from an extreme and build humanity out of it. Mildred in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is not a real person from the start. She’s almost superhuman then gets more sides revealed until she almost makes sense by the end. Colm is built in the same way. I kind of get what’s going on in his head by the end, but there’s no way I could explain his actions to make him sound like a sane human. McDonagh uses the absurdity in the dullest of settings to great effect. Watching this did remind me of Wild Mountain Thyme. That movie has a similar setting and is just as mundane, then throws in something crazy. That movie is far less successful at that than The Banshees of Inisherin. I find them both fascinating in ways that I can’t throw away though. Inisherin is a film I’ll be pondering for a while.
Removing the thematic heft, Banshees is just plain entertaining. McDonagh’s dark humor is wonderful. The film is full of silly exchanges and jokes. Characters are silly without being looked down on. Colin Farrell is a tremendous wounded puppy dog for most of the movie. He’s a boyfriend who doesn’t understand a bad breakup. Farrell plays the hurt so well. Padraic is the kind of guy you want to have a best friend but you don’t want him to be your best friend. He is dull. Colm on the other hand is more abrasive. It’s clear that Colm and Padraic had a leader-follower relationship, and in hindsight, it was only a matter of time before this breakup would happen. Gleason plays Colm’s sadness and worries about existence well. He’s a man badly in need of a therapist, because he has no idea what to do with his emotions. The hardest parts of the movie are when Colm gives Padraic a glimmer of hope that the relationship could be saved, because you can tell that a part of Colm wants to go back as well. Granted, he’s a horse’s arse for much of time too. Honestly, my biggest issue with the movie is that I couldn’t see how this friendship worked for so long. Everyone in town acts so surprised when Colm shuns Padraic, but the tone of their relationship suggests that it was inevitable. How was it such a surprise to everyone?
Kerry Condon is lovely as Padraic’s sister who lives with him. Throughout the film, it becomes apparent how much she and Colm are Padraic’s emotional support infrastructure. More importantly, it feels like she isn’t just there in service of Padraic. She has determined that he’s worth her support and she’s angry that Colm suddenly disagrees. Barry Keoghan plays, for lack of a better term, the town idiot. I’m not sure how significant he really is to the larger movie, but he’s a great example of the flavor McDonagh gives to this community. Inisherin feels like an island that exists beyond the frame of the camera, which is easier said than done.
Breakups are messy. From the outside looking in, it’s easy to see why it would be easier to just stay together. Even the one doing the breakup struggles. Few movies have captured how insane, illogical, and sad a breakup is while also using the word ‘fecking’ at least a hundred times.
Verdict: Strongly Recommend
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