Off the Coast of Ireland, Exploring the Nature of Niceness

The question of what makes someone a good person permeates the new movie “The Banshees of Inisherin.” It’s brought up several times by the main characters, who include a humble dairy farmer, Pádraic, his sister, Siobhán, and his former best friend, Colm. The qualifier “former” is key here because Colm no longer wishes to hang out with Pádraic. Thus begins a tale of friendship rent in two — not by malice, exactly, but by despair.Taking place on an island off the west coast of Ireland in 1923, the movie has a fairytale beginning, complete with green fields, warm sunlight, and even a rainbow. Soon enough, though, Pádraic comes to realize that Colm doesn’t want to grab their usual pints at the pub, that Colm no longer wishes to be friends because he considers their conversations boring. Turns out Colm is a composer and wants to focus his time, which he considers evanescent, on writing songs on his fiddle and general contemplation. (The idea of setting boundaries with Pádraic on when and for how long they could socialize doesn’t seem to occur to Colm.)Dumbfounded and devastated, Pádraic is unable to understand how someone can just stop being a friend. Others are incredulous as well, with Siobhán and the pub’s bartender telling Pádraic that he’s not dull but nice. Even the island’s priest asks Colm why he’s chosen to stop talking with his friend, and this confession scene soon devolves into a hilarious shouting match. For much of the film’s first half, the tone is tartly twee, with lines of dialogue landing as if we’re watching a sitcom. A miniature donkey, a dopey young man, and a wraith-like old woman whom everyone avoids make up some of the other characters. Shots of pink sunsets recur again and again, allowing the viewer the rosy belief that all will end happily despite mentions of warring factions on the mainland (the Irish Civil War). Yet if one is familiar with the work of playwright/screenwriter/director Martin McDonagh, the expectation that something grim will happen never goes away. Sure enough, as Pádraic persists in engaging with Colm, that moment comes.Mr. McDonagh often digs in the soils of dark comedy, as reflected in the movie “In Bruges” and plays such as “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” and “Banshees” tills its twisted irony through self-mutilation and successive miseries. His Irish-English heritage certainly provides him with more insight into the character of a fictional Irish island than it did when he depicted a made-up Midwestern American town in “Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri.” How one reacts to this film’s developments, though, may depend on one’s ability to stomach a bit of the grotesque and several bumpy plot holes.The cast Mr. McDonagh has assembled helps immensely to sell the more implausible aspects of his script. Colin Farrell, who rarely seems to challenge himself but does so here, gives a delicate performance that’s initially amusing and ultimately heartbreaking. He illuminates, scene-by-scene, how Pádraic’s sense of his place in the world falls apart when Colm rejects him as a person.Brendan Gleeson must make Colm’s vanity and contempt almost relatable, and it’s a testament to his intelligence as an actor that he succeeds by keying us into both the character’s inherent decentness and his depression. As Siobhán, Kerry Condon never strikes a false note and delivers some of the script’s sharpest quips. Barry Keoghan astounds as Dominic, a “wise fool” archetype straight out of a Shakespeare play.“The Banshees of Inisherin” might have made more of an impact as a play, considering its limited characters, few key locations, airy realism, tragical allusions, and minimal subplots. Surely the emotion it reaches for in its final stretch would have worked better onstage, though Mr. McDonagh pulls out all the stops, including a beautiful Brahms lied and multiple sea-swept vistas. Still, as it stands, it’s a compelling exploration of the nature of niceness, the rarity of true friendship, and the insanity in sanity. The movie may not end neatly, but it tells a unique, stark story not easily forgotten or dismissed. Much like Pádraic.

Off the Coast of Ireland, Exploring the Nature of Niceness

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