movie reviews for the banshees of inisherin

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movie reviews for the banshees of inisherin

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The Banshees of Inisherin Reviews

...a low-key and often excessively deliberate endeavor that never quite becomes as engrossing or captivating as one might’ve anticipated...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 7, 2024

The comedy is a veil for deep, complex themes that give “The Banshees of Inisherin” humour and pathos. Among these are measured explorations on toxic masculinity, loneliness, and purpose.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 15, 2024

It’s a film that merrily embraces fairy tale elements, enveloping us in a grim fable where good and bad are murky concepts at best.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 3, 2024

Through the story of two friends, Martin McDonagh also tells a tale of an everyman who has to wrestle with the idea of being forgotten while continuing to dredge through life and grapple with innumerable absurdities that govern it.

Full Review | Jun 11, 2024

“The Banshees of Inisherin” does a superb job of empathizing with Padraic. He bears the burden of uncertainty and questioning his reality.

Full Review | Jun 8, 2024

There are no missteps here, and it is, without a doubt, the best movie of the year for my money.

Full Review | Feb 28, 2024

Raw and weird, it’s a mordant fable of friendship gone sour that will have you questioning your own mortality while simultaneously making you laugh until it makes you cry.

Full Review | Feb 13, 2024

Dominic is the most tragic character in an island of pure, untempered tragedy.

Full Review | Jan 29, 2024

The greatest tragedy of all is that one of the friends will sacrifice what made them special, only to become another banshee of Inisherin.

Full Review | Dec 29, 2023

A dark comedy, at times with a great dramatic component, that explores human relationships and interpersonal communication with a lot of charisma and in a highly entertaining way. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Dec 19, 2023

McDonagh finds the perfect moments to insert humor, but the film’s comedic turns often serve to underscore the scope of the tragedy.

Full Review | Oct 26, 2023

A fascinating examination of male loneliness and hurt feelings.

Full Review | Sep 13, 2023

McDonagh uses the conflict between Pádraic and Colm to serve as a metaphor for the Irish Civil War. Brother against brother. Friends against friends. Their friendship loses itself in the fables of Inisherin forever.

Full Review | Sep 8, 2023

Its heartbreak is as potent as its comedy, both intertwined with the rhythms of the dialogue.

Full Review | Sep 5, 2023

It's delightful to watch these two character actors go back and forth...These two actors [Colin Farrell & Brendan Gleeson] are at the top of their game.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Aug 10, 2023

Colin Farrell’s performances lifts this quirk and dark comedy from Martin McDonagh.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Aug 9, 2023

The Banshees of Inisherin, as the title implies, is about death, both literal and figurative, but it’s the sad demise of a friendship that forms the bedrock of this brilliant, often poignant, frequently funny Irish fable.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

Strikingly funny and heartbreakingly honest, Martin McDonagh returns to form by telling the tale of a non-romantic breakup, the sadness of being dumped, and the tricky business of dumping someone.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 25, 2023

Martin McDonagh explores the painful part of human relationships by finding the comedy and gore contained within.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

The Banshees of Inisherin is brilliant beyond belief. Darkly Hilarious, emotional, & Richly layered with themes of fate, friendship, & death. Colin & Brendan were stunning! Martin McDonagh though might of just directed & wrote his best film of his career

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A farmer gets dumped by his best friend in 'The Banshees of Inisherin'

Justin Chang

Colin Farrell plays a sweet-souled farmer whose best (human) friend abruptly dumps him in The Banshees of Inisherin. Jonathan Hession/Searchlight Pictures hide caption

Colin Farrell plays a sweet-souled farmer whose best (human) friend abruptly dumps him in The Banshees of Inisherin.

Because we as a culture can mistakenly equate beauty with shallowness, it's taken time for some to realize what a great actor Colin Farrell is. He's always been a charismatic screen presence, though in recent years he's revealed striking new emotional depths as a leading man in movies like The Lobster and this year's After Yang . He's also proved willing to bury his good looks under mounds of prosthetics as the villainous Penguin in The Batman .

Farrell gives what may be his strongest performance yet in The Banshees of Inisherin , and one of the reasons he's so good in it is that he's playing a character who, perhaps like Farrell himself, is used to being underestimated. His character, Pádraic, is a sweet-souled farmer who's spent his entire life on Inisherin, a small, fictional island off the coast of Ireland.

It's 1923, and life here is simple and repetitive, which is why it sends off small shockwaves one day when Colm, Pádraic's older best friend, refuses to join him for their usual afternoon pint down at the pub. He soon learns that Colm, who's played by Brendan Gleeson, has decided to end their decades-long friendship with nary a word of explanation.

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Brendan gleeson, on 'guard' as a small-town cop.

In time, the truth comes out: Colm finds Pádraic dull, and is tired of listening to the younger man's endless yammering — especially since it keeps Colm from pursuing his passion: playing and composing violin music.

Gleeson is terrific at showing you the tenderness beneath his outward stoicism, and what's heartbreaking is that Colm does still like Pádraic — but he also knows that their friendship is draining him. But Pádraic can't accept Colm's decision. He tries cajoling his former friend, then pleading with him, then badgering him.

At one point, Colm becomes so irritated that he threatens to physically harm himself if Pádraic doesn't leave him alone. And since this is a movie written and directed by Martin McDonagh, the British Irish playwright and filmmaker with a taste for baroque comic violence, you know it isn't an idle threat.

This movie isn't as grisly as some of McDonagh's earlier stage and screen works — I still have fond memories of seeing his blood-soaked play The Lieutenant of Inishmore years ago, and somewhat less fond memories of his Oscar-winning film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri . Compared with that movie's wildly uneven mix of comedy and tragedy, The Banshees of Inisherin is a quieter, gentler work, but its melancholy also cuts much deeper. McDonagh opens the story with gorgeous, postcard-worthy images of Inisherin, all lush green landscapes and even a rainbow in the sky. But by the end, he has quashed any sweet or sentimental thoughts we might harbor toward this isolated community, where people can be spiteful and small-minded and mock those who want to leave or strive for something better.

Few people know this as well as Pádraic's bookish sister, Siobhan, played by a terrific Kerry Condon. She loves her brother dearly, flaws and all. She's also one of the few people in town who can connect with Colm intellectually, and she understands why he wants to be left alone.

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There are other colorful supporting characters, too: a nasty policeman, a doom-prophesying old woman and an annoying young man played, with marvelous pathos, by Barry Keoghan. And I haven't even mentioned the animal cast: Two of the movie's most important characters are Colm's pet collie and Pádraic's pet donkey, noble creatures who put the pettiness and stupidity of humans to shame.

There's something a little glib about that idea — and also about the way The Banshees of Inisherin uses the Irish Civil War, raging in the background of the story, as a counterpoint to the conflict between Pádraic and Colm. But there's nothing glib about how these two characters are written. To watch Farrell and Gleeson rage against each other is to better understand what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. It's been a while since a movie extracted this much drama from the end of a beautiful friendship.