Martin McDonagh’s latest feature reunites Colin Farrell with Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan, having starred alongside him in In Bruges (2008) and The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) respectively.

Farrell and Gleeson play old friends living on Inisherin, a tiny island off the coast of Ireland. The film is set in 1923, and the soundtrack is punctuated by gunshots from the civil war on the mainland. The population of the island is in the hundreds, if that. Farrell plays Pádraic, who lives with his clever, cynical sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon), and several farm animals, notably a beautiful miniature donkey. Pádraic has a long-standing friendship with Colm (Gleeson), and they frequent the island’s only pub together on a daily basis, often from 2pm. Colm suddenly decides he no longer wants to be friends with Pádraic, and the reluctance on both parts to sit down and behave like adults about it leads to disastrous consequences. 

The Banshees of Inisherin is very funny, walking a line between sitcom-esque exchanges, and things that real people might actually say. Of note is a dinner exchange between Pádraic, Siobhan, and Dominic (Barry Keoghan), the island’s young creep. 

The film’s stark gender divide, showing Siobhan’s intelligence and frustration at the island’s other inhabitants in direct opposition to the idiot men stuck in their idiot ways, seems a little on the simplistic side. However, what the film lacks in nuanced representations of gender, it makes up for in explorations of male friendship, coming to terms with the ageing process, and the perpetual isolation inevitably felt living in such a small community. 

The Banshees of Inisherin speaks to the absurdity of human nature, drawing sometimes allegorical parallels between large and small acts of pride-based stupidity, asking its audience to consider how far men will go for what they believe in, if what they believe in is utterly moronic. 

Watching The Banshees of Inisherin is an experience I am glad to have had, even if it did leave me feeling a little more hopeless than I had before.

The Banshees of Inisherin is showing at Watershed from Fri 21 Oct for at least a week.