THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN

Every day for as long as anyone remembers, dairy farmer Padraic (Colin Farrell) has stopped by the cottage where local musician Colm (Brendan Gleeson) resides to take him to the pub. When Colm suddenly tells him the friendship is over, Padraic takes it as a joke, gets distressed, and then gets angry. But Colm is also furious – or seems to be – saying he will cut off a finger every time Padraic bothers him. In a Martin McDonagh film (In Bruges; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), such bloody threats are always serious. McDonagh’s tragi-comedy, set on an imaginary island off the coast of Ireland in 1923 – where they can see and hear the splutter of guns in the ongoing Irish revolt – is a brilliant parable of male pain. At first, Colm's emotional implosion seems splendidly childish, but then the violent fallout shows how sinister male pride can be.