Many Irish observers will — perfectly reasonably — never get over their unease with Martin McDonagh’s bitter retooling of national stereotypes. After the post-Tarantino shapes of In Bruges and the midwestern gothic of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, the London-Irishman here returns to those tropes with gleeful, fruitful enthusiasm. This raw, bare comedy embraces the tone, the setting and the shape of his breakthrough plays.
We are once again off in the west (as far west as you can go). The rhythms of JM Synge clatter through the language. Featuring a small cast bustling about a few locations, the film could comfortably accommodate restaging in a theatre.
Playing in competition at an enthusiastic Venice Film Festival, The Banshees of Inisherin casts In Bruges alumni Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as, respectively, Pádraic and Colm, old pals suddenly estranged by nothing more sensible than the senior man’s objection to the younger fellow’s niceness. Colm refuses to sit beside Pádraic in the pub. He turns his back on him when entreaties are made. Eventually, he threatens to mutilate himself if Pádraic persists.
Colin Farrell has always had a gift for pathos. Here it adds poignancy to an often brutal tale. Brendan Gleeson’s psychotic determination allows in scant hints of the friend he once was, but his dexterity on the fiddle reveals a still undimmed romantic spirit
The clunking political metaphor playing out a few short miles away strains patience a little. Set on a western island during Ireland’s Civil War, the film puzzles at the inexplicable small-scale schism while the noise of bombs and machine guns echoes from the mainland. Which is commenting on which? Can we really say the historical conflict was a falling out over nothing tangible?
At any rate, it is the smaller interactions between the boldly drawn characters that elevate The Banshees of Inisherin. Farrell has always had a gift for pathos and his palpable disappointment — communicated by a face falling in upon itself — adds poignancy to an often brutal tale. Gleeson’s psychotic determination allows in scant hints of the friend he once was, but his dexterity on the fiddle reveals a still undimmed romantic spirit.
Kerry Condon is equally strong as Pádraic’s clever, determined sister. Barry Keoghan just about makes sense of an abused eejit who seems a second cousin of John Hurt in The Field and a great-nephew of John Mills in Ryan’s Daughter.
Few here in the Adriatic city were worrying about so many Dubliners playing Connacht men, but that argument is sure to rage when the film reaches domestic audiences. There will be less grumbling about Pat Shortt and Jon Kenny reuniting for an unofficial D’Unbelievables comeback.
The combination of angular comedy and existential gloom is at the heart of McDonagh’s best work. More disciplined and less at home to overreach than Three Billboards, The Banshees of Inisherin showcases that clash to good effect
McDonagh treads a meandering line between his gruesome and empathetic instincts. He initially looks to be chasing a kinder certificate with frequent use of “feck” rather than what Mrs Doyle called “the bad F-word”, but there is a fair bit of the latter as the film encounters modest degrees of bloodletting.
More convincing than the indirect engagement with specific historical events is the general investigation of universal human wretchedness. Taking on the role a therapist would occupy in a contemporary urban drama, the local priest, played drily by David Pearse, asks Colm: “How’s the despair?” He responds as if he’s being queried about a persistent case of debilitating boils.
That combination of angular comedy and existential gloom is at the heart of McDonagh’s best work. More disciplined and less at home to overreach than Three Billboards, The Banshees of Inisherin showcases that clash to good effect.
Invoking the spirit of John Hinde postcards as he allows the scenery to comment implicitly on the action, McDonagh confirms that, for those not temperamentally opposed to the entire shtick, there is much life yet in his embrace of durable narrative traditions. This might finally earn Gleeson the Oscar nomination he has deserved for so long.
