Director: Martin McDonagh
Starring: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan and David Pearse
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Runtime: 114 mins. Reviewed in Nov 2022
Reviewer: Peter W Sheehan

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Rating notes: Mature themes, coarse language, injury detail and brief nudity

This Irish-British-American film tells the story of two men who have been life-long friends, and who tragically end their relationship. Their breakup has dire consequences for the both of them.

Awarded prizes for Best Screenplay (to director, Martin McDonagh), and Best Actor (to Colin Farrell) at the Venice Film Festival in 2022, this film has been highly acclaimed on the International Film Circuit. It is set on the remote, fictitious island of Inisherin, off the west coast of Ireland, during the Irish Civil War in 1923. The film was shot on the islands of Inishmore and Achill, with civil war portrayed across Irish waters. The film brings director McDonagh back to the cinema screen after his Oscar-winning Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017).

Padraic Suilleabhain (Farrell) and Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) have been friends for a long time. When Colm, who writes music and plays a fiddle and fears his mortality, unexpectedly puts an end to their friendship, Padraic is shocked by Colm’s actions. He talks to his sister, Siobhan (Condon) and a troubled, retarded teenager, Dominic Kearney (Keoghan) – the son of an abusive policeman – and unsuccessfully tries to rescue the friendship. Colm and Padriac have met as drinking partners in the town pub for years, and Colm makes it clear that he doesn’t want Padriac’s company or conversation any longer, and wants to sever all contact with him. Colm finds Padraic dull, and says he has better things to do with his (remaining) time and that he will cut off one of his fingers each time Padriac bothers him. Padriac continues to remain at a total loss to understand why Colm is rebuffing him, and Colm tragically maintains his stubbornness by keeping on injuring himself. There is a confessional interaction between Colm and a Catholic priest (Pearse), that furthers the complexity of the issues.

This is a film that is melancholic, disturbing, bizarrely macabre, and profoundly moving. Two wonderful performances by Farrell and Gleeson lie at its core. The film probes the culture existing among lonely Irish men, and the movie is brilliantly scripted to potently blend dark tragedy and comic touches. It reveals insights about masculinity, explores the rigidity and repression of small town life in rural Ireland, and shows the terrible effects of human loneliness that isolated life can engender.

The film is a black comedy about friendships occurring against the backdrop of civil war. Interpersonal friendships are put under severe stress, and well-meaning behaviour is misjudged. As Colm’s fear of his own mortality increases, he finds Padriac’s niceness intensely irritating, and every attempt Padriac makes to restore friendship, reveals further truths about both men. Farrell’s performance is razor-sharp and Gleeson’s performance is a perfect foil to Padriac’s desperate fear of rejection, and search for the warmth of human acceptance.

This is a carefully modulated film that deals with particularly strong themes, that encompass loss of friendship, sexual and physical abuse by a parent, teenage suicide, mental illness, disability, the death of a beloved animal, religious fanaticism, and horrendous self-injury. Events force Colm into desperate behaviour that has terrible consequences; the movie morphs into a dark film about the loss of valued friendship in Colm’s fear of what might lie ahead. The film’s humour, mixed with violence, brilliantly reinforces the appalling nature of human behaviour that emerges under stress.

This is a film that is hauntingly sad and heart-breaking. Under McDonagh’s expert guidance, the film is brutal in parts, but has excellent acting, direction, and cinematography. Above all, it offers viewers a piercing study of loneliness and misunderstood friendship, and grimly illustrates the evil men can do to each other, when the search for personal solitude and peace gives way to despair.