Continuing the countdown of my favorite 2022 movies…

Best Films of 2022
#8 – The Banshees of Inisherin

I don’t remember the exact circumstances of most of my moviegoing experiences. I mean, nine times out of ten I know I saw the movie at my local Cinemark, but beyond that the particulars of each visit blend together.

That decidedly isn’t the case for The Banshees of Inisherin. I saw this movie on a cold, damp day in Norwich, England, with my older daughter at my side. She had recently been discharged after ten days in a university hospital and we were spending a week at an Airbnb before flying back home to the states.

At times, sitting by her hospital bedside, I felt like she would never leave that room. It’s not that her condition was dire — after an early scare she was on a slow but steady road to a full recovery — but a function of the way time slows down in that setting. Every minute in a hospital feels like an hour, every day feels like a week.

But then, just like that, we were free. Eating Nando’s and watching my first-ever movie on European soil.

Banshees was the perfect choice for that setting. Norwich isn’t Inisherin, but it’s a lot closer than South Florida. The sad, foggy dampness outside followed us right into the theater, where we watched a story of two lonely men struggling to find meaning in very different ways.

This is an Irish folk tale, set against the backdrop of the country’s 1923 civil war, in which Colin Ferrell’s Pádraic Súilleabháin and Brendan Gleeson’s Colm Doherty are two friends caught up in their own inexplicable battle.

Colm, a musician facing his own mortality, declares he no longer has time for frivolous friendships and decides to shun Pádraic to make more time for his art. Pádraic, whose life revolves around his relationships with people and animals, can’t accept that choice without a fight.

Rounding out the strong ensemble are Barry Keoghan as another friend of Pádraic’s and Kerry Condon as Pádraic’s sister. Each of those relationships changes in ways that leave Pádraic increasingly isolated. But at least he has his donkey, Jenny, to keep him company.

Banshees is often hilarious but goes to some very dark places. That’s true of all of writer/director Martin McDonagh’s movies, especially his 2008 debut In Bruges, where Ferrell and Gleeson first teamed up. The duo has delightful chemistry on and off the screen.

The film is an allegory about a civil war in which there are no winners, but it also works nicely as a meditation on mortality, legacy, self-destructive behavior, and the value of simple decency.

I recommend seeing it on a wet, chilly day sitting next to somebody you love.