Ireland’s rural west was the setting for a group of plays born out of a remarkably prolific period in the mid-1990s that spurred Martin McDonagh on the map. But beyond the title originally intended to complete his Aran Islands trilogy, The Banshees of Inisherin remained for decades in the larval state, unproduced and unpublished. The playwright considered it an immature work, leaving room for the possibility of returning to it later in life. Preserving the title but spinning an entirely new thread to flesh out its folk ballad suggestion, the writer-director’s superbly acted fourth feature is his most Irish work for the screen to date, and also one of his finest.

A dark comedy that steadily evolves into a surprisingly poignant tale of broken friendship – with violent force when distance doesn’t have the desired effect – though never erased, the film could be read as McDonagh analyzing the cultural heritage of his Irish parentage. Most likely, however, is that this born storyteller is simply composing a melancholic duet, a rumbling separation in the small population of a fictional island, revealing it to be a haunted place of silence, loneliness and madness, but also kindness and resilience. humanity.

The film reunites Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, whose difference in age, physique and character type creates a Beckettian pairing that brings out the best in both actors, as he did in McDonagh’s feature debut in 2008, In Brugge. They direct a ruminative ensemble piece that deftly balances the tragicomic with the macabre, inhabiting territory adjacent to McDonagh’s stage work but also extremely cinematic. That last factor owes much to Ben Davis’ moving big-screen cinematography, bringing a mythical quality to rugged landscapes, and Carter Burwell’s full-bodied, shifting score, one of his finest.

McDonagh’s gift for savory dialogue and character is on full display from the quick set-up, when Pádraic (Farrell) shows up at his lifelong friend Colm’s (Gleeson) lonely fisherman’s cottage for their regular date at the pub at 2 p.m. and is perplexed by his HOME cold. The older man sits inside, smoking in brooding silence, clearly visible through the window but offering no explanation for his refusal to acknowledge Pádraic’s presence.

The mystifying rejection weighs heavily on Pádraic at the bar, where questions about the absence of his publican friend, Jonjo (Pat Shortt), put salt in the wound. “Why didn’t he open the door for me?” Pádraic asks his sister Siobhán (Kerry Condon) at the house they share with his beloved miniature donkey, Jenny (a scene-stealer to rival the main character in Jerzy Skolimowski’s film HEY.)

The next day, back at the pub, Colm tells Pádraic to sit somewhere else but confirms that the young man didn’t say or do anything to upset him: “I don’t love you anymore.” Gleeson’s heavy face conveys the cost to Colm of even minimally justifying his actions, but after much insistent pressure from Pádraic in the days that followed, he admits to finding it annoying. “But he was always boring,” protests Siobhán. ” What changed ? »

As Pádraic’s hurt confusion grows in tandem with Colm’s gruff intransigence, it appears the older man can feel his life slipping away and only desires a little peace in his heart. He wants to spend his last days thinking and composing music on his violin. This latter interest leads him to develop new friendships with local music students, compounding Pádraic’s brutal isolation.

With the setting set in 1923 and this intimate conflict unfolding against the backdrop of cannons and gunfire heard from the Civil War raging across the continent, McDonagh teases the humor in the schism of old friends. This is especially the case in Farrell’s harrowing and funny performance, as this gentle, intellectually incurious man is forced for what seems the first time to think about his limits. Telling himself that he is “nice, not boring”, Pádraic becomes convinced that Colm is depressed and needs his help. His clumsy interventions cause Colm to resort to drastic measures of self-harm to persuade Pádraic that he is deadly serious.

The idea of ​​a 1920s Irish farmer (Pádraic herding a handful of cows to provide milk for the general store) discussing depression seems as unlikely as terms like “tough love” and “nutsack” being in the vernacular. But McDonagh imbues the tale with a timeless dimension in keeping with the rock faces, icy sea and overcast skies of its atmospheric setting.

While the title’s ghostly folk creatures aren’t literally depicted, ghoulish old black-clad Mrs. McCormick (Sheila Flitton) seems to thrive on fate. “One death will come, maybe even two deaths,” she intones with what sounds like mischievous pleasure.

Siobhán, a voracious reader and the only character with a clue to get away from Inisherin, calls the people there “bitter and mental”, describing the place as “nothing but gloom and slow passage of time”. She loves her brother and even loves Colm. But in Condon’s razor sharp performance, his patience was worn to the bone. “One more silent man on Inisherin,” she calls Colm. “You are all boring with your pitiful grievances.”

The ripple effect of Pádraic and Colm’s collapse hits everyone in different ways – the talkative shopkeeper (Bríd Ní Neachtain) who demands news as if it’s the only currency she accepts; the priest (David Pearse) who comes to the island weekly to say mass, hear confession, and fight back when challenged; the petty cop (Gary Lydon) who regularly drowns his frustrations in hooch and lashes out at his son Dominic (Barry Keoghan) with abuse of all kinds. Even the peaceful gathering place of the pub is violated by tension.

Although he’s not the brightest spark and blithely scorns standard social filters, Dominic is more perceptive than anyone realizes. He has a touching openness about him, especially when he makes nervous, self-effacing courtship overtures to Siobhán, one of the few times she lets go of her fragile detachment. Keoghan takes on this small role and invests each line with as much delicate pathos as humorous eccentricity. It’s a wonderfully eerie performance, no less essential to the film’s onion-like emotional layers than those of Farrell and Gleeson.

The periodic scenes in which Pádraic uses Dominic as a sounding board for his grief are particularly tender. Farrell strikes a balance between exasperation with the policeman’s son and a painful need to fill the void of friendship created by Colm’s removal from his life.

Overall, the actors couldn’t be better. A number of them are veterans of McDonagh plays, including Condon, Shortt, Lydon, Flitton and Aaron Monaghan, who played a devastating role in The cripple of Inishmaan and here’s a hilarious scene as Colm’s musician friend, dismissed with cruel haste by Pádraic as he becomes uncharacteristically ruthless. McDonagh’s understanding of the particular rhythm distribution and innate musicality of language adds to the theatrics, but the material is never static or scenic.

A sense of place envelops the viewer in every image. Davis captures the exterior scenes (shot in Inishmore, Aran Islands) in dim natural light, with candles and gas for the interiors, as befits a region where electricity would only have arrived years later. 1970. And Mark Tildesley’s production design is rich in detail, from Pádraic and Siobhán’s rustic family farmhouse to the time-worn pub to Colm’s cottage, its walls and ceiling adorned with musical instruments , masks, puppets and other artistic finds that speak to his cultural interests transcending this remote location.

Throughout the film, McDonagh deliberately flirts with the absurd and the grotesque, punctuating the story with his usual jolts of creative violence and stealthy suspense. But for all its wit, lively speech and deceptive levity, it’s arguably the writer-director’s most touching work. The devastating performance arcs of Farrell and Gleeson — two men once bound in easy company, both ultimately turned inward with blazing relentlessness — sow a desperation that, in the end, provides them with a perverse kind of mutual comfort.

Accepting sadness as part of life seems to be something that only comes with age, which suggests McDonagh was right to sit on that title all those years, until he can dig up characters and a story to do him justice.