OSCARS 2023: The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Some filmmakers take years to build up a beloved reputation with critics and awards prognosticators. Other directors, meanwhile, seem to become favorites pretty much immediately. It's hard to say which category Martin McDonagh falls into exactly. Coming to prominence as a playwright in the nineties, McDonagh won his first Oscar in 2004 for his short film, “Six Shooter.” To those that don't pay attention to the shorts categories, it would seem McDonagh slowly earned recognition for his violent comedies, “In Burges” and “Seven Psychopaths,” before “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” became an Academy front runner in 2018. Now, McDonagh has returned with “The Banshees of Inisherin,” which has predictably become another high-profile awards season release. Whether you call that instant success or a gradual build, I suppose depends on whether you think a Best Live Action Short Oscar is worth much. 

As the Irish Civil War of 1924 wages on the mainland, the residents of the tiny Irish island of Inisherin live in isolation. Farmer Pádraic Súilleabháin travels to meet his friend, fiddle player Colm Doherty, at his home. Instead, Colm ignores him. Pádraic soon learns that Colm no longer wishes to be his friends, that he considers him “dull” now. This baffles and enrages Pádraic. Every further attempt Pádraic makes to reach out to Colm only causes the blustery loner to push him away more, with increasingly disturbing actions. Soon, the old friends have become bitter rivals. 

During a key confrontation in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Pádraic insists to Colm that he's a nice person, that everyone on the island knows that he is nice. Colm fires back that niceness doesn't matter. That he wants to devote what life he has left to perfecting his musical compositions, to creating art that will outlive him. This raises an important question, one we've all probably grappled with from time to time: How do you measure a good life? Is it all about the legacy we leave behind? Or is it about being kind to others and living an existence that is as pleasant as possible? It's really a matter of opinion but this disagreement on what we should be striving for, in our world, is what drives “The Banshees of Inisherin.” 

Of course, part of the irony of “The Banshees of Inisherin” is that Pádraic is not as “nice” as he believes himself to be. As Colm's rejection of him goes on, he goes to increasingly unsettling attempts to prove himself as an interesting person. Colm's own reaction to Pádraic repeatedly violating his boundaries is also pretty extreme, involving bodily mutilation. As the gorgeous cinematography pulls back and shows the vast, green island, I started to think the problem here is not the people but the place they are in. Inisherin – a fictional island, by the way – is isolated. This is the 1920s, before cell phones, the internet, or television. The island doesn't even seem to have telephone lines or radio yet. Pádraic's acerbic sister gets off the island midway through the film and encourages her brother to do the same. I think living out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to do but drink and bitch with the locals, is making everyone go a little stir crazy. 

I've seen “The Banshees of Inisherin” described as a comedy, which is true. However, it's about exactly the kind of comedy you'd expect from the scribe of “The Pillowman.” That is to say “Banshees” provides an especially existential type of humor. Colm, while in confessional, wonders if God observes people's actions at all. There are deaths, violence, mentions of sexual molestation, and references to war. Yet “The Banshees” is funny. This is mostly thanks to McDonagh's colorful dialogue, which makes the most use of the word “fecking” I've ever heard in any film. Pádraic's drunken rambling, awkward attempts to manipulate people, and the tense conversations he has with his sister are all frequently amusing. McDonagh's strength has always been his ability to capture a small-town specificity, with a creative vulgarity, which is fully on display here.

A negative review describes “The Banshees of Inisherin” as an attempt to turn a short story into a novel. This strikes me as probably an honest criticism of a film that, honestly, doesn't have quite enough narrative meat on its nearly two hour long bones. Yet the performances really keep this one alive. Colin Farrell is at his squirmy best as Pádraic, a man of modest depth who has been pushed into an increasingly uncomfortable scenario. The moment where he declares his rivalry to Colm will doubtlessly be Farrell's Oscar clip and it's a fantastic scene. Brendan Gleeson has seemingly always carried an immense sense of world-weariness on his shoulders. That is put to excellent use here as Colm, a man determined to be left alone with his art. The oddest performance belongs to Barry Keoghan as Dominic, the island simpleton who is frequently abused by his father. Keoghan shows brilliant moments of shining clarity under an overgrown man-child who has clearly never been given much of a chance. Even if his subplot never amounts to much, Keoghan is still a highlight of the film. 

I suspect actual Irishmen will have more insight into “The Banshees of Inisherin.” The references to the Irish Civil War, which the entire story seems to be a somewhat strangled metaphor for, goes a little over my dumb-ass American head. (At least one writer has actually criticized the film for employing Irish stereotypes, which I'm also woefully unaware of.) I do appreciate McDanagh making sure an actual banshee of sorts, in the form of an ominous old woman fond of predicting people's death, appears here. And, after “Three Billboards” ambiguously supported police brutality, it's refreshing that he wanted people to make sure his opinions on cops were made clear here. Ultimately, I don't think “The Banshees of Inisherin” is a groundbreaking work of genius. I do think it's a really interesting, funny, clearly personal work that grapples with big themes in a quiet way, never quite coming to clear conclusions but being an enjoyable ride nevertheless. [7/10]