For the month of March I generally try to show something that has some sort of tie to Ireland: Irish actors, director, setting, story, etc. This year, I've decided to show Martin McDonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin.
The Banshees of Inisherin is a 2022 black tragicomedy film written and directed by Martin McDonagh. The film follows lifelong friends (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson) who find themselves at an impasse when one abruptly ends their relationship; Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan also star. It reunites Farrell and Gleeson, who previously worked together on McDonagh's directorial debut In Bruges (2008).
The film received critical praise with a certified fresh rating of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, and Glenn Kenny, writing for Rogerebert.com, gave the film 3.5/4 stars saying this in his review, "One thing I didn't have on my lifetime cinematic bingo card was Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson become the 21st century's answer to Laurel and Hardy. And yet. With 2008's In Bruges and now The Banshees of Inisherin, the Irish actors, under the writing and directing aegis of frequently pleasantly perverse Martin McDonagh, display a chemistry and virtuosic interplay that recalls nothing so much as the maestros of the early 20th century Comedy of Exasperation. As a director, McDonagh orchestrates the give-and-take between Farrell and Gleeson with the mastery of someone who appreciates these performers as much as discerning audiences do. They let it fly; Farrell does some of his best acting with his furrowed eyebrows; Gleeson has a glare that's both a death-ray and an enigma. The pauses these guys enact are at times even funnier than the verbal comebacks McDonagh has come up with for them. And as it happens, Barry Keoghan as Dominic almost steals the movie out from under the leads, his very funny vulgar brashness never quite camouflaging his character's poignant vulnerability. Very good show all around."
We will be meeting Thursday, March 23 at 5:30pm
Here's a trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRu3zLOJN2c
Hope to see you there!
