The Banshees Of Inisherin

This sums it up well

It's weird that this film is upsetting some people so much in that they're finding it so hard to buy into in the events that unfold on the screen. It's essentially a play and, as such, has a heightened sense of reality. You're not really meant to think "sure, this would happen in real life", just as you're not meant to think that 'In Bruges' or 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri' are realistic, true to life yarns. As someone else put it, succinctly, it's Beckett crossed with 'Father Ted' in as much that it has a fairly out there story set on the gloominess of Craggy Island. Also, the actions and motivations of the characters are left open to your own interpretation. So people should feel free to see what they can in the story.

And as Marcel Duchamps said, "All art is what you say it is", or words to that effect anyway. So therefore, the viewer is entitled to react to the film in the way that they do. Whether that's a natural reaction or whether they went in looking to hate it in the first place.

Personally, I thought the film was very good, if taken as semi absurdist theatre. Probably the directors best so far and it doesn't have that extreme shift in tone that lets the final third of 'In Bruges' down.

Acting wise, I think everyone was excellent, including the much maligned Barry Keoghan (who seems to get an inordinate amount of hate for some odd reason) and, to me, all the main characters are well drawn people beset by their own burdens. Farrell's Padriac is nice, but incredibly dull and not the brightest shilling either, and therefore hindered by a lack of personality and intelligence. That's coupled with an pig headed inability to simply accept a situation and move on.

Gleeson's Colm is a man nearing the end of his life and realising he's done nothing with it. He's also lumbered with a (possibly) mediocre talent and also has a mediocre ambition to write a bit of music before he gives up completely - IIRC we never actually get to hear that piece of music. As he says he's just marking time until the inevitable and that sudden epiphany and the further spiral into a depressive state is his burden. He's also burdened by the other realisation that he's never really liked his "lifelong friend" and was simply marking time there as well. Colm is a man that wants to be remembered far more than he deserves to be because he's done nothing memorable.

Kelly Condon's character, Siobhan, is a smart woman who's wasted her years with her head in books. She has a palpable disdain for the people of the island, whom she views as "boring". She wants to run away to bury herself in a library job which is, more than likely, her metaphorical conclusion as a spinster, doomed to live out her years in loneliness on the more populated mainland.

And, finally, Keoghan's character of Dominic is burdened with, seemingly, a mental condition which renders an ability to interact with the other islanders. He's written off a "dumb" or "slow" and his destiny is to be the village idiot, which he's half way there to becoming. But in a couple of scenes, we see that perhaps he's not as stupid as the people of the island believe him to be. He's also abused by his father, a man who revels in his position as "the law" on the island, and that may well play an important part in his stunted mental growth. Dominic's way out of his burden is, as he desperately hopes, through Siobhan. But his advances are politely refused, with devastating consequences.

All of the main characters are well realised, even if it's within the film's own particular sense of reality. Of course Colm's extreme reaction wouldn't happen in real life, but his existential crisis of his own dawning inconsequential being is one that many of us will come to understand and there are many of us who would do worse than what Colm did and choose to take the ultimate act of mutilation.

At the very least, 'The Banshees of Inisherin' provided a reaction, whether it was positive of negative. And it has enough going on in it to provoke a thought or two, which is more than can be said for a lot of movies these days. That alone makes it worth a watch.

I really regret not getting to this when it came out in London.

This was the first film I’ve seen by McDonagh, I didn’t know what to expect from it. The film seems to have gone down well with the critics though as is evident from the award nominations. But I didn’t enjoy it when I watched it, it felt bleak, it wasn’t what I was looking for sitting down on a Friday night. Maybe if I had watched it another night on my own I might have seen it differently. I can’t fault the acting though.

Tony EH thanks for the rundown on the film btw.

There's certainly more of a comic tone to Banshees than there is in Three Billboards, that's for sure. But in any case, I think, to a lot of people, McDonagh has a peculiar idea of what constitutes comedy, although everyone's idea of what's funny is going to be deeply personal as you say. Out of everything he's done that I've seen, though, the first two thirds of 'In Bruges' remains his funniest effort. I struggled to see any comedy at all in Three Billboards however, although that doesn't mean that it wasn't an enjoyable film.

I thought it was decent enough.

Watched the killing of a sacred deer the other night with some of same actors, now I thought that was a pile of dung.

As a film I thought it was ok, nothing special but I did love the cinematography and scenery especially when trying to portray it so far back, I didn't see a single thing out of place.

This is the point I was trying to make (hamfistedly)

This is an objectively well made, well acted, very well shot, well directed movie.

It is not 'a steaming pile of sh1t' as someone so eloquently put it.

I was called a snob earlier. One of my favourite films is Real Steel so that probably gets me evicted from the snob booth at elites bar and restaurant.

I was getting annoyed by the toxic comments on this thread. People who came on here to sh1t on a good film that they didn't like.

I don't think it's the greatest film ever made. I enjoyed it. My wife watched it again and I didn't rewatch it with her. I'll probably rewatch it again in a few years.

The reason why I asked if people watched it 'properly' is because the humour is both absurd and subtle. Its not killinaskully, if you're 'multi tasking' you could miss a lot

And it was a question, not an accusation

The arty crowd really are strange. A good watch no doubt but out of ten id be giving it 7.

A lot of bullshit in it but the people who vote in the awards love all of that kind of stuff.

Good or bad, the fawning over this film by RTE would sicken you.

Oh look, foreign people like something Irish. HEADLINE NEWS!

I'm sure McDonagh and people apparently more intelligent than me will see this film as some sort of grand artistic statement, or some sort of metaphor for the the modern world, but I found the film absolutely horrible to watch. Good cinematography, lovely panoramic shots of rural Ireland. Decent acting. But one of the most depressing storylines I think I've ever seen in a film. I respect people's views and fair play to anyone that enjoyed it, but for me, there's enough depressing stuff going on in the world without films like this one. I just don't understand the fawning over it.

The film is based on a fictional Aran island in 1923 so I think it's also accurate that they would wear Aran jumpers.

Also, don't think it portrays ireland in a bad way at all as I'd say it's accurate as to what island life was like then.

It portrays Ireland better than has been done in the likes of Darby O'Gill etc which is more "Oirish".

In Banshees the characters are articulate, intelligent and have substance behind them. Very different to other hollywood portrayals of Irish.