Friendships dissolve for a litany of reasons. Exasperation. Envy. Fallen scales from gradually or suddenly clearer eyes. Sometimes it’s a last straw; sometimes, an entire bale of hay, parked in plain sight, unnoticed for years.
The reasons for the breakup in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” writer-director Martin McDonagh’s fourth feature, become clear in due course. But they’re not important, not really. Like “some fool of a moody schoolchild” or simply a man protective of his remaining time on his tiny, gorgeously forlorn (and fictional) island off the coast of Ireland, amateur pub fiddler and aspiring composer Colm Sonny Larry, played by Brendan Gleeson, has decided to sever his longtime friendship with his mate Padraic, portrayed by Colin Farrell.
Tending his cows, chatting over porridge in the cottage he shares with his restless sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon), Padraic is an uncomplicated man, dull and known; if he’s known for anything, for his niceness. He can’t fathom why Colm has dumped him as a friend. Now, suddenly, his friends have dwindled to three: his sister; “the village gom,” a tragicomic outsider and the vicious local policeman’s son played by Barry Keoghan; and his beloved miniature donkey, Jenny, who earns every second of screen time.
