It had so many Oscar nominations, and such high praise, that I felt I must see it. And I stuck it out for its near two-hour running time in a sparsely attended cinema where some patrons left halfway through. At least the Achill scenery in The Banshees of Inisherin was captivating, and it features an adorable little donkey.
ut for the rest of the movie, I found it cruel, depressing, sadistic and boring. How had this farrago of tedium been plied with such hype and plámás? Then it turned out that Hollywood wasn’t ass enough to garland it with expected Oscars.
The storyline is now fairly familiar: two friends, Pádraic (Colin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleeson), live on a remote island off the coast of Ireland, which has the heavily symbolic title of “Inisherin” (hint, hint – Inis Éireann – the island of Ireland). The dim and melancholy Pádraic frets like a schoolgirl on TikTok that the grim-faced Colm won’t be his friend any more. Colm, a musician, tells his erstwhile pal that if he doesn’t stop pestering him, he’ll cut off his own fingers one by one and throw them at Pádraic’s door. Which he does. And – spoiler alert – it all ends in a death, conflagration and no particular resolution.
OK: some moviegoers loved it – mostly, as far as I can gather, younger men who see it as a terrific black comedy. It has been called a Marmite experience – you like it or loathe it.
And yes, I get the “existential” ideas being signalled to us. Colm, who writes music as well as playing and teaching the fiddle, aspires to something “meaningful” in his life. He doesn’t wish to be trapped on an island with a friend as dull as Pádraic chatting pointlessly over the daily pints. He doesn’t want to be “nice” any more. He looks ahead to his own death, hoping to leave something behind – like his music.
So it makes perfect sense that he cuts off all the fingers on one hand, which considerably hampers his ability either to write or perform. Eh?
I get the metaphors – they are underlined with such heavy-handedness, you could hardly not. The Civil War is proceeding on the mainland: the two former friends are symbolic of the two sides in the conflict, one dull, the other self-destructive. (One moviegoer also saw it as a metaphor for Brexit – damaging your own anatomy/economy out of petulance.)
And I get all the dark symbolism – the ghastly old crone who represents death, the thwarted spinster trapped by the insularity of her life, the prying, avaricious postmistress straight out of The Valley of the Squinting Windows (given the task of painting the letterboxes green, for the new Free State, nudge, nudge). Some of the characters – from the violent and abusive guard to the half-witted lonely teenager – are Irish stage clichés of old. Paddywhackery tropes, now with added grotesquerie.
Martin McDonagh, the writer and director, certainly has a dramatic gift, but he has developed a stereotyped formula: take a psychopathic character, add a couple of eejits, inject a running theme of pointless cruelty and stir the mixture with coarse melodrama and dark comedy.
But consider what John B Keane could do with tough, mean characters, like Bull McCabe or Big Maggie – bringing layers of psychological background, subtlety and motivation – and contrast that with McDonagh’s formulaic and one-dimensional personae.
Farrell and Gleeson turn in professional performances, as you’d expect, but the character of Pádraic doesn’t have much of a range of emotions – he’s mostly just a one-note, wheedling miseryboots – while Colm’s character is represented by grumpy brutality, with scant revelation of why he has suddenly become the way he is.
Yes, I get the point that people sometimes do crazed, irrational things. But art and drama are supposed to bring us insight into the human condition, probing the wellsprings of a character’s motivation.
Sure, it’s great that the Irish film industry has benefited from the hype around Banshees, not least as an advertisement for a breathtaking location on the Wild Atlantic Way. (And who wouldn’t admire the gorgeous Aran sweaters knitted by Delia Barry of Greystones?)
It’s great that other Irish movies, like the wonderful and affecting An Cailín Ciúin, and An Irish Goodbye emerge with honours, and in the latter’s case an Oscar. It’s rewarding to see a young actor like Barry Keoghan – playing the love-starved, teenage abuse victim – getting his big break with a compelling performance.
A controversial film, play or book that becomes a talking point can draw out ideas and reflections on life and circumstances. But The Banshees of Inisherin just didn’t merit its Oscar nominations, in my judgment, and in the view of many who have found it disappointing, exasperating and ridiculously overhyped.
