The Banshees of Inisherin

2022 - 10 - 21

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Image courtesy of "NPR"

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

Colin Farrell plays the sweet-souled Irish farmer in Martin McDonagh's film. One day, his friend Colm (Brendan Gleeson) abruptly refuses to join him for ...

It's been a while since a movie extracted this much drama from the end of a beautiful friendship. McDonagh opens the story with gorgeous, postcard-worthy images of Inisherin, all lush green landscapes and even a rainbow in the sky. 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. 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. 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. He's also proved willing to bury his good looks under mounds of prosthetics as the villainous Penguin in [The Batman](https://www.npr.org/2022/02/28/1083465564/the-batman-robert-pattinson-review).

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Image courtesy of "The Walt Disney Company"

How Martin McDonagh's 'The Banshees of Inisherin' Tells a ... (The Walt Disney Company)

The film, now playing in theaters, stars Dubliners Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, who reunite with director-writer Martin McDonagh, with whom they made In ...

“The sunsets and the skies were fantastic and lent themselves to a beautiful piece.” It was a dream to be able to come to these places.” Ultimately, McDonagh says he sought to create one of the most beautiful Irish films in cinematic history. McDonagh says he wanted to “capture the beauty of Ireland in the film and lean into that. The story is dark enough anyway, but we wanted the visuals and the locations to be as cinematic as possible.” For example, the mountainous geography of Inisherin impacts the story. The film would not have been possible without help from the locals on Inishmore and Achill, McDonagh adds. It was so strange and anomalous to have weather that was as consistently beautiful and almost Greek.” Condon adds that filming in Inishmore was like a “spiritual” experience: “The locations and scenery are characters in themselves.” “We came back a few steps from the coastline and found a location on the edge of the cliff to build the house, looking down over one long end of the island towards an ancient monument called Dún Aonghasa. Although the fictional island of Inisherin is unaffected, the tension on the mainland is palpable. The Banshees of Inisherin is set in 1923, just as the Civil War was raging in Ireland. Although he was born in London, McDonagh’s parents are Irish—his mother from Sligo and his father from Galway—and The Banshees of Inisherin pays tribute to the filmmaker’s heritage. “Inisherin is a fictional island, so I didn’t want it to be specifically one place,” adds McDonagh. For starters, the characters Pádraic and Colm were written specifically for Farrell and Gleeson, respectively—two of the most lauded, respected Irish actors working today.

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Image courtesy of "Vox"

The Banshees of Inisherin: Even better if you know the Irish history ... (Vox)

Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson re-team for Martin McDonagh's riotous fable that's about more than a friend breakup.

But that dialogue is meant to take on a note of bitter irony — or perhaps the darkest of comedy, which are two sides of the same coin in Ireland. In the end, the characters muse that the conflict across the way seems to be subsiding, and it seems the conflict on Inisherin might be too, in the darkest of manners. The break between Colm and Pádraic works on its own terms, but it’s also a startlingly violent fight between men who are basically brothers, a fight that has a logic to it and yet is heartbreaking precisely because of the depth of history between them. In The Banshees of Inisherin, there’s no literal banshee, but it’s clear that’s the role that Mrs. They’re fantastic in the roles, Gleeson as a world-weary grump and Farrell as a naif who seems to be missing a few screws. The reason for the break is elusive to Pádraic, and even a bit elusive to Colm, who just can’t deal with his friend anymore.

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Image courtesy of "esquire.com"

'The Banshees of Inisherin' Is the Next Great Knitwear Film (esquire.com)

Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell, male misery and loads of great clothes.

“Colin, Brendan and Barry all loved the jumpers and, watching the film, I wish we had used more knitwear!” says Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh. But there is a heightened realism to this film, and to the story, so I didn’t want to be a slave to the clothing of the place. Inisherin isn’t a real place, but the film was shot on the actual island of Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands that sits at the mouth of Galway Bay, one of the original homes of the Aran jumper. To create a wardrobe that felt believable and suitably well worn, Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh pored over photos of fishermen and locals from the era, before her and her team created each item of clothing from scratch. His long coat and hat should give the sense of the cowboy striding across the landscape.” All the silhouettes and forms are true, but some of the colour is heightened.

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Image courtesy of "Screen International"

UK-Ireland box office preview: 'Black Adam' goes up against 'The ... (Screen International)

DC's 2022 releases kicked off with The Batman in March, a record wide release for Warner Bros, playing at 709 locations. It took £13.5m in its opening weekend.

Netflix has crime drama [The Good Nurse](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-good-nurse-toronto-review/5174394.article), also a Toronto premiere, in under 25 cinemas, ahead of its Netflix release on Wednesday (October 26). In event cinema, Trafalgar Releasing has Metropolitan Opera Medea at 153 sites, including a live broadcast on Saturday (October 22) and delayed live screenings. It is the directorial debut of Finnish-Somali filmmaker Khadar Ayderus Ahmed and marks the first time a fully Somali-language feature has been released in UK cinemas. The English-language title follows a 13-year-old girl who must use her survival skills to make sure she and her ailing father remain alive after the collapse of the world’s ecosystem. [My Policeman,](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/my-policeman-toronto-review/5173886.article) which plays in around 60 locations ahead of its release on Prime Video on November 4. Seventh Art has the film in 13 locations across the weekend, with an additional four on Monday. Kaleidoscope has Mia And Me: The Hero Of Centopia out at 400 locations from Saturday (October 22). The South Korean neo-noir follows a homicide detective who falls for a potential suspect. The dark comedy is set in a remote part of Ireland in the 1920s, and follows the unravelling of a lifelong friendship between two local men. Thor: Love And Thunder took £9.1m from 696 locations for Disney in July. Martin McDonagh’s highly anticipated latest feature – his first since 2017’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – premiered at Venice and reunites McDonagh with In Bruges duo Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. DC League Of Super-pets also took the top spot on its release in August, taking £2.6m in its opening weekend.

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Image courtesy of "iNews"

The Banshees of Inisherin: Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson shine ... (iNews)

Why do wars start? Why do old friends fall out? Irish writer-director Martin McDonagh's new tragicomedy can't answer either question but it makes a very bold ...

The film leaves it up to the audience to decide. We’re used to seeing kids in the playground behaving with this level of spite and malice toward one another but not grown men. Some of the humour is on the cruel side anyway. Nothing will induce the implacable Colm to spend any time with someone he has now decided is a complete dolt. The islanders can hear the distant rumble of guns going off on the mainland (where the Civil War is raging). Farrell (who has already won Best Actor at Venice and must be in with a shout of an Oscar nomination) is Padraic, a good-natured farmer who lives quietly on a sparsely inhabited island off the west coast of Ireland.

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Image courtesy of "Slate Magazine"

The Great New Comedy That Should Get Colin Farrell His First ... (Slate Magazine)

Martin McDonagh's Follow-up to Three Billboards Is His Best Movie Yet · This very Irish dark comedy, reuniting In Bruges' Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, is ...

The Banshees of Inisherin’s greatest gift to its audience is its refusal to turn its eccentric, intimate story into an allegory for anything other than what it is: the sad tale of an abruptly interrupted friendship in a beautiful, isolated place. Often, the camera pulls far back to emphasize the tininess and isolation of the town’s inhabitants in their dramatic cliffside setting. Across the water on the Irish mainland, a civil war is raging, but it reaches the inhabitants of the island mainly in the form of the occasional puff of smoke from a distant explosion. When his rage at his friend’s incessant pestering takes a violently self-destructive turn—for every time Pádraic addresses him in the future, he vows, he will take a pair of shears and chop off one of his own fingers—the film veers toward horror without losing either its philosophical gravitas or its earthy sense of humor. In an authorial gesture similar to Colm’s refusal to give Pádraic a reason for his rejection, McDonagh refuses to come down on one side or another of the friends’ quarrel. Colm’s decision to withdraw from the friendship appears to have more to do with wrestling with his own mortality than with anything his friend has done.

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Image courtesy of "Digital Trends"

The Banshees of Inisherin review: 2022's best breakup film | Digital ... (Digital Trends)

The Banshees of Inisherin features two career-best performances from Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson.

It’s not just Colm and Pádraic’s friendship that McDonagh has on his mind in The Banshees of Inisherin, though. In a sense, Farrell’s turn in The Banshees of Inisherin even feels like an inverse of his In Bruges performance. That point is never better made than in The Banshees of Inisherin‘s third act when McDonagh briefly shows Farrell’s Pádraic watching silently as distant pillars of smoke billow up into the air. They look strikingly similar to the ones that Pádraic saw near the start of the film, but unlike those, which belonged to Ireland’s mainland, these new plumes of smoke are coming from the same space as a nearby Inisherin homestead. Together, Keoghan, Condon, Farrell, and Gleeson breathe real life into The Banshees of Inisherin’s isolated and humorous, if often melancholic, world. Set in the early 1920s, The Banshees of Inisherin takes place during a time when Ireland is still in the midst of its infamous civil war. As Siobhán, Pádraic’s sister, Condon serves as the steady, sole voice of reason amid the growing chaos caused by Colm and her brother’s unnecessary feud. Opposite him, Colin Farrell taps into the same kind of emotional volatility that McDonagh spotlighted when they worked together nearly 15 years ago on In Bruges. McDonagh, for his part, never outright explains the feelings and thoughts that led Gleeson’s Colm to such a bitter, violent mental space, either. The decision, which is born out of seemingly nothing more than Colm’s own dissatisfaction with his life, forces both he and Pádraic to face the parts of themselves and their lives that they’ve either never noticed or long chosen to ignore. However, when Pádraic repeatedly demands to hear a reasonable explanation for his friend’s change of attitude, Colm comes up with a brutal ultimatum: Every time Pádraic bothers Colm, he will cut off one of his own fingers. Not since their previous collaboration have Gleeson, McDonagh, and Farrell dealt with such emotionally visceral, delicate material, but all three emerge from The Banshees of Inisherin more accomplished than they were before.

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Howling for the 'Banshees' (Los Angeles Times)

Get the Envelope newsletter for exclusive awards season coverage, behind-the-scenes stories from the Envelope podcast and columnist Glenn Whipp's must-read ...

[which I reviewed](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2022-10-20/ticket-to-paradise-review-julia-roberts-george-clooney). [“Zuma”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ5obJ6dWOE) from Neil Young’s ’70s run and include the ordinary “Wild Life” in Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles hot streak. (“Probably my biggest cheat in there,” he told me over Slack.) So, yes, there’s much to debate — and listen to. Added Farrell: “From the first day of rehearsal on ‘In Bruges,’ there was a shorthand that was deeply organic and familiar. Mikael looked at solo artists who released at least four classic or near-classic albums in at most five years, [ranking them near-genius to godhead](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2022-10-18/taylor-swift-midnights-stevie-wonder-joni-mitchell-70s-singer-songwriters). Martin McDonagh’s beautifully bleak story of a broken bond, “The Banshees of Inisherin,” opens in one measly theater today in Los Angeles. It doesn’t matter if it’s years between the times we see each other; we just pick up where we left off.” “I was waiting for it to happen, frankly,” Gleeson says of the reteaming. Because I have vowed to listen to Taylor Swfit’s “Midnights” only as the clock strikes 12. There’s much to discuss. Then grab a pint afterward, hopefully with someone who’ll still talk to you. The world is quiet, the scented candles just smell better, and I can feel my feelings vibrating with an extra intensity.

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Image courtesy of "25thframe"

This weeks North American new movie preview 21st October 2022 ... (25thframe)

This weeks North American new movie preview 21st October 2022 - Black Adam, Ticket to Paradise, The Banshees of Inisherin, Aftersun and My Policeman ...

[Martin McDonagh](https://www.25thframe.co.uk/director/Martin McDonagh), it is the directors 4th movie. [Martin McDonagh](https://www.25thframe.co.uk/director/Martin McDonagh) also directed In Bruges in 2008 which grossed $7.8 Mil. - The Lair - Thursday, 25th August - The MPAA age rating is - The Ambush - Friday, 21st October - The Devil's Light - Friday, 28th October - The movie is directed by Michael Grandage, it is the directors 4th movie. - The Good Nurse - Monday, 10th October - The film also stars Frankie Corio who is making a feature film debut. - The movie is from director Charlotte Wells. - The movie is directed by - The film also stars

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Where was Banshees of Inisherin filmed? On location for Martin ... (iNews)

Also starring Kerry Condon as Pádraic's sister, Siobhán, and Barry Keoghan as a troubled young islander, Dominic Kearney, the drama deals with the breakup of ...

Permission for the former was given to use a fisherman’s cottage – the only house on the perfect crescent of sand that is Keem Beach. A confessional scene was also shot at St Thomas Church, the island’s 19th century Church of Ireland place of worship in the peaceful surroundings of Dugort. Unlike the Aran Islands, Achill is connected to the mainland by bridge and has a dramatic brooding beauty that chimed with the themes of the drama. One of the Aran Islands’ most notable heritage sites, it teeters on the edge of a cliff with a sheer 285ft drop down to the Atlantic Ocean churning below and was also used for a scene with Padraig and Colm. The cast and crew spent three weeks filming on the largest of the Aran Islands, Inishmore, which was the location for Padraig’s Cottage and other scenes. Achill Sound is also the finishing point for the popular off-road, 27-mile cycling and hiking route [The Great Western Greenway](https://greenway.ie/).

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Image courtesy of "Polygon"

The Banshees of Inisherin review: 2022's funniest, darkest comedy (Polygon)

Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and writer-director Martin McDonagh reunite for a spiritual sequel to their 2008 assassin comedy-thriller In Bruges.

And until it strays off course, it remains a nuanced expression of this idea in the present, causing its characters to curdle and contort as they begin to believe they’re running out of time. As McDonagh tries to put words to his ethereal themes of mortality and remembrance in The Banshees of Inisherin, it winds up reading like an attempt to ground intangible spiritual dilemmas in concrete reasoning and definitive emotional paths. 21, with a national rollout to follow over the next few weeks. All of which makes the story more didactic and moralizing than the first two acts suggest it’s going to be. Colm doesn’t come right out and say it, but his sudden desire to create and to be remembered, like his idol Mozart, feels directly informed by the looming specter of death. The actual violence never touches Inisherin’s shores, and there’s certainly a case to be made that the film’s tale of brother turning against brother is a metaphor for the conflict, albeit a flimsy one. As the story unfolds, the absurdist playwright in McDonagh comes rushing to the fore in a way it hasn’t in any of his films since In Bruges. The Banshees of Inisherin is a return to familiar territory for writer-director Martin McDonagh: It plays like a spiritual sequel to his pitch-black 2008 comedy-thriller In Bruges. But McDonagh can’t quite find the right way to string all his heavy themes together once he enters its final act. He’s checking in on his pal Colm Doherty (Gleeson) to invite him to the local pub for a pint, per their usual routine. Those glimpses imbue the film with a borderline romantic warmth, which cinematographer Ben Davis paints with the dim flickers of candle- and lamplight. This time around, they play much simpler men — a farmer and a musician, respectively — but they have the same anguish as their assassin counterparts, resulting in a film that maintains a spiritual vice grip over its audience, in spite of the charming setting.

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Image courtesy of "Condé Nast Traveler"

Where was 'The Banshees of Inisherin' Filmed? (Condé Nast Traveler)

But Martin McDonagh's new film, starring an impressive cadre of Ireland's best and brightest, was actually filmed across a smattering of islands off the coast ...

We wanted to take advantage of different islands in the country rather than just one. There’s lots of unspoiled coast, it was just a matter of finding it. They’re right off the coast of Galway, you take this boat over and then you’re really at the mercy of the locals.

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Image courtesy of "NME.com"

'The Banshees Of Inisherin' review: hilarious hillside comedy-drama ... (NME.com)

In 'The Banshees Of Inisherin', Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Martin McDonagh team up for the first time since 2008's 'In Bruges'

Much of the film was shot on the island of Gleeson is just as good, the glint in his eye an intoxicating blend of melancholy and madness. The target of this rancour is Pádraic (Colin Farrell), his best mate on the (fictional) island of Inisherin, off the coast of Ireland. He wants to use what he has left wisely, compose a song for his instrument and make his mark – not talk for two hours about the contents of Pádraic’s donkey’s shite. Set in 1923, as the civil war rages on the mainland, the conflict on this small spit of land is every bit as combustible. Scratching his head, he’s left to chew the fat with Dominic (Barry Keoghan), the dim-bulb son to the island’s curmudgeonly copper.

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Image courtesy of "Vulture"

Oscar Futures: Can Banshees of Inisherin Banter Its Way to a Trophy? (Vulture)

Martin McDonagh's “The Banshees of Inisherin” is the most universally regarded contender to bow thus far, and Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, ...

But Jamie Lee Curtis is an industry legend who’s been shilling hard for the film out in L.A., and the Halloween Ends press tour has often mentioned the factoid that, despite working in Hollywood for 45 years, she’s never been nominated for an Oscar. “The movie belongs to Condon,” raves Many pundits are pointing to him as the early Supporting Actor frontrunner, and it’s not hard to put your finger on why: As a face-palming fiddler who’s fed-up with Farrell’s knucklehead, he’s in the middle of the film’s central conflict, and he nails the obstinacy that keeps it escalating. But Mara’s also playing the character most committed to the movie’s mission, which could give her some standard-bearer appeal if Sarah Polley’s intellectual drama picks up Best Picture heat. But as awards-season gamesmanship, it smacks of realpolitik: Mulligan, the more familiar face for Oscar voters, will run in the easier category, while the never-nominated Kazan gets pushed into the Best Actress gauntlet. It might be worth it for critics’ groups to give Mescal a push. It prompted The Evening Standard’s [Charlotte O’Sullivan](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/the-banshees-of-inisherin-movie-review-colin-farrell-martin-mcdonagh-b1032631.html) to dub him “a legend in his own right,” while his performance as a lovable dullard trying to repair a friendship is hailed by [Justin Chang](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2022-10-20/review-the-banshees-of-inisherin-colin-farrell-brendan-gleeson-martin-mcdonagh) as “one of the finest he’s ever given … He seems like the kind of leading man who’ll catch Oscar’s attention eventually, but will this elliptical memory piece get him there ahead of schedule? [say](https://www.awardsdaily.com/2019/10/21/best-actor-its-more-about-the-star-than-the-performance-poll/) a successful acting bid is built on the confluence of star, role, and film, and Farrell’s got all three working for him at the moment. Could Dhont be a dark-horse pick in a category where European auteurs often thrive, or is the 31-year-old still too unseasoned? (The Irish Times’ [Donald Clarke](https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/review/2022/09/05/the-banshees-of-inisherin-might-finally-get-brendan-gleeson-his-long-deserved-oscar-nod/) allows that, “for those not temperamentally opposed to [McDonagh’s] entire shtick, there is much life yet in his embrace of durable narrative traditions.”) Combined with stellar reviews, being back on familiar soil could be a boon for the playwright-turned-filmmaker, who’ll be hoping obtain the Best Director nom that eluded him five years ago. [likability reigns supreme](https://www.vulture.com/2022/09/the-new-rules-of-oscars-season-20222023.html).

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From The Banshees of Inisherin to Taylor Swift: a complete guide to ... (The Guardian)

A black Irish comedy or the return of country-pop's finest? Our critics have you covered for the next seven days.

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