December 14, 2022
Padraig Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell) and his spinster sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon) lived on Iniserin, a remote island off the coast of Ireland. One day, his best friend Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) suddenly began avoiding him and did not want to talk with him anymore. Padraig kept pressed Colm for a reasonable explanation. Exasperated, Colm threatened to cut off a finger from his left hand for every time Padraig talked to him.
Crafting black comedies is the expertise of Irish writer-director Martin McDonagh. He had already won awards for this past films like "In Bruges" (2008), "Seven Psychopaths" (2012) and Oscar Best Picture nominee "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" (2017) -- black comedies all. Compared to the others which involved crimes, the premise of his latest film was relatively so simple, and that was what made it so strikingly intimate and ironic.
Friendship is a topic that everyone can identify with. How will you react if a lifelong friend suddenly declared that he wanted nothing to do with you anymore? Is this news something you could easily accept? Or would this development bother you no end, such that no reason he gave ever seemed to be good enough for you? Being a black comedy, the situation between Padraig and Colm went to absurd extremes, but we can all feel the sting.
This screen partnership of Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson was also the centerpiece of McDonagh's feature film debut "In Bruges" as it was here in "Banshees." As they both play stoic menfolk in a remote Irish village, there were no big explosive emotional fireworks here. As men were wont to do in real life, Farrell and Gleeson held everything in restraint within their characters, relying on subtle nuances and wit to get their feelings through to the other.
The charm of rural life in a bleak but picturesque Irish village in 1920s was fully captured here. Padraig's donkey and Colm's dog played important roles as their quirky pub denizens or the town gossip. Kerry Condon was very good as Padraig's sister and sounding board, until she felt she needed room to breathe herself. Sheila Flitton was mystical as the old woman who saw the future, perhaps a personification of the legendary creatures of the title. 8/10.
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