Friendship is so important in the Bible. Scripture seems to prize it even more than family. It makes sense – friendship is “chosen love,” not obligatory affection. It depends on mutual reciprocal affiliation, devotion, and care. Family is people you’re stuck with. Friends are people you’re blessed to have (and who have you). Friendship is also the sinew that holds community together. In story after story throughout the Bible, troubled family relationship are expected. Broken friendships are tinged with tragedy.
Friendship is at the heart of The Banshees of Inisherin, Martin McDonagh’s blood-black comedy about two men who can’t be friends anymore. By the end of the film, I was reminded of the famous shot of Marion’s chocolate-syrup-for-blood circling the drain in Psycho. Inisherin is just that desolate.
The two used-to-be friends are played by Colin Farrell and Brendan Glesson, two actors I’ll watch in anything. They are both phenomenal in this. Gleeson’s performance recalls John Wayne in one of his more unsavory roles but with more doomed conviction than the prone-to-preen Duke could ever muster. Farrell must have spent a few months in a smoke house curing alongside hunks of goat meat to prepare for this role. He barely has a voice. His skin is taught. He moves like someone trying to make no impact on the world. He’s pitiable, like a kicked dog, but you wonder if his character, Páidric, isn’t leaning into his appeal for pity a little too earnestly. It’s a credit to both actors and to McDonagh’s script and direction that as soon as you start sympathizing with one friend over the other, you have reason to swap allegiance.
The reasons for their falling out are straightforward, at least they think they are. The more the film picks at the separation, the more you start to wonder if there aren’t incurable psychological illnesses threading through their psyches that doomed their friendship from the start. I could make an argument in favor of either friend, and I cannot defend the actions of either at the same time. What a knotty tale this is! You never feel resolution, only sadness and longing and bewilderment.
I feel the same thing looking around at the divisions that run through our society. I think that may be McDonagh’s sneaky point. It’s been a preoccupation with him for a while. I don’t think he’s trying to make an allegory here. By focusing on a single friendship that falls apart for the most basic reason is like a back-to-basics way to explore the “capital D” Division that plagues communities the world over. This is a tragedy, and ethical response to tragedy is lament. We cry out “Why!?!” We beseech God for miraculous restoration we cannot achieve on our own. You can read a lot of the Bible this way too. The Banshees of Inisherin is the “Why!?!”
Friendship is so important in the Bible. Scripture seems to prize it even more than family. It makes sense – friendship is “chosen love,” not obligatory affection. It depends on mutual reciprocal affiliation, devotion, and care. Family is people you’re stuck with. Friends are people you’re blessed to have (and who have you). Friendship is also the sinew that holds community together. In story after story throughout the Bible, troubled family relationship are expected. Broken friendships are tinged with tragedy.
Friendship is at the heart of The Banshees of Inisherin, Martin McDonagh’s blood-black comedy about two men who can’t be friends anymore. By the end of the film, I was reminded of the famous shot of Marion’s chocolate-syrup-for-blood circling the drain in Psycho. Inisherin is just that desolate.
The two used-to-be friends are played by Colin Farrell and Brendan Glesson, two actors I’ll watch in anything. They are both phenomenal in this. Gleeson’s performance recalls John Wayne in one of his more unsavory roles but with more doomed conviction than the prone-to-preen Duke could ever muster. Farrell must have spent a few months in a smoke house curing alongside hunks of goat meat to prepare for this role. He barely has a voice. His skin is taught. He moves like someone trying to make no impact on the world. He’s pitiable, like a kicked dog, but you wonder if his character, Páidric, isn’t leaning into his appeal for pity a little too earnestly. It’s a credit to both actors and to McDonagh’s script and direction that as soon as you start sympathizing with one friend over the other, you have reason to swap allegiance.
The reasons for their falling out are straightforward, at least they think they are. The more the film picks at the separation, the more you start to wonder if there aren’t incurable psychological illnesses threading through their psyches that doomed their friendship from the start. I could make an argument in favor of either friend, and I cannot defend the actions of either at the same time. What a knotty tale this is! You never feel resolution, only sadness and longing and bewilderment.
I feel the same thing looking around at the divisions that run through our society. I think that may be McDonagh’s sneaky point. It’s been a preoccupation with him for a while. I don’t think he’s trying to make an allegory here. By focusing on a single friendship that falls apart for the most basic reason is like a back-to-basics way to explore the “capital D” Division that plagues communities the world over. This is a tragedy, and ethical response to tragedy is lament. We cry out “Why!?!” We beseech God for miraculous restoration we cannot achieve on our own. You can read a lot of the Bible this way too. The Banshees of Inisherin is the “Why!?!”
Elijah Davidson is Co-Director of Brehm Film and Senior Film Critic. Subscribe to Come & See, his weekly newsletter that guides you through the greatest films ever made, and find more of his work at elijahdavidson.com.
You didn’t come here for a lesson. You came here to watch the Rock make things go boom.
