The dark and funny The Banshees of Inisherin could nab TIFF Peoples Choice Award – Toronto Star

The Banshees of Inisherin

Starring Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan, Pat Shortt, Gary Lydon, David Pearse and Sheila Flitton. Written and directed by Martin McDonagh. Screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. 114 minutes. STC

The good folk of Inisherin, an island off the coast of Ireland, generally keep their collars buttoned to the top and their tweed garments well layered.

Its to ward off the perpetual chill of a place that is blessed with scenery but not reliably good weather.

The one chill islanders dont have to bother with involves social relations. Everybody gets along with everybody else and, even if they dont, they still talk civilly to one another. How could they not, with statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary smiling at them beatifically at seemingly every turn?

Until the day comes when dairyman Pdraic (Colin Farrell), a man so carefree he often doesnt know what month it is, calls upon his lifelong friend Colm (Brendan Gleeson), a fiddle player and aspiring composer.

Its time for their daily afternoon pint of Guinness down at the pub.

But on this day, Colm is having none of it and apparently never again any of it: I dont like you anymore, he flatly declares to an astonished and hurt Pdraic.

Therein turns the tale of The Banshees of Inisherin, a film by Oscar-winning writer/director Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) that you could call a comedy if you have an extremely dark sense of humour and a keen appreciation of fatalism, as the Irish certainly do.

Whatever you choose to call it, the film is often very funny. Its a f---in good yarn, to use a word that rhymes with pecking, an adjective oft heard in Inisherin.

The movie arrives at the Toronto International Film Festival with garlands of Best Actor (Farrell) and Best Screenplay from the Venice International Film Festival. Judging from the gales of laughter at the screening I attended, it stands a good chance of nabbing the TIFF audience award this weekend.

McDonagh often employs absurd extremes to tell his stories recall the accusatory billboards of his previous film and heres the strangest one yet: Colm tells Pdraic that if he doesnt leave him be, he will respond by chopping off one of his own fingers or thumbs, all 10 digits if need be. Its all the more terrible a deed for a fiddler player to threaten.

And for what mad reason? Colm has decided that he can no longer abide Pdraics endless nattering, which includes a two-hour dissertation on his wee horses anal excretions. In a word, Colm finds Pdraic dull and, as he nears his retirement years, he wants to spend the rest of his days thinking and composing, not engaging in small talk. The year is 1923, which makes it almost a century ahead of our modern phenomenon of ghosting a friend.

Pdraic certainly can talk hes kissed the Blarney Stone, as the Irish would say but everyone agrees its unfair to single him out as being dull.

Youre all f---ing boring! Pdraics sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon) tells Colm and she would know. Shes contemplating leaving the island because theres no man there shed happily marry. This especially includes the local fool Dominic (Barry Keoghan), who has the habit of saying what people are only thinking.

Its seems obvious that Colm is suffering from a serious case of depression hes confessed feelings of despair to his local priest but theres apparently no therapist available to help him. Theres also no doubting the seriousness of his finger-chopping threat, which you know wont stop there if youre familiar with how far McDonagh takes things, especially when he pairs Farrell and Gleeson, as he previously did for In Bruges.

I should mention that Inisherin is a fictional place and the movie is a fairy tale, albeit a very grim one, lit more like dire Irish drama than green-and-sunny shamrock comedy.

Reality intrudes with the sound of gunfire across the water on the mainland, where a sectarian civil war ensues, something that has long shattered the peace of the Emerald Isle. Indeed, if theres any message to the film, its the caution that small hurts and insults left unsettled can lead to bigger and more dangerous battles, as those guns across the water attest.

And what of the banshees of the title, a reference to the female spirits of Irish folklore who wail to portend a family death? Its explained in due course, along with the observation that if Inisherin in fact has any banshees, they sit and observe, amused. And so do we.

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The dark and funny The Banshees of Inisherin could nab TIFF Peoples Choice Award - Toronto Star