The Banshees of Inisherin

Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: October 21, 2022

7.3	USER SCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 232 Ratings

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Brent_MarchantDec 13, 2022

Writer-director Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy-drama is one of those films that leaves me (and probably many other viewers) scratching my head, making me sincerely wonder what all the fuss is about. In this fable-like Irish folk tale about twoWriter-director Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy-drama is one of those films that leaves me (and probably many other viewers) scratching my head, making me sincerely wonder what all the fuss is about. In this fable-like Irish folk tale about two longtime friends (Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson) whose relationship suddenly reaches an impasse, they struggle to come to terms of where things go from there in the aftermath of this scenario. There’s just one problem here: the picture’s razor-thin premise with its virtually nonexistent back story doesn’t provide enough basis for why the dissolution of this friendship occurs and then escalates to a tale of inexplicable desperation and truly bewildering retributive self-abuse. Indeed, we seem to know more about the setting of the story – a small island off the western Irish seacoast during the waning days of the new republic’s 1922-23 civil war – than we do about its characters, their relationship and their motivations. To compound matters, the narrative stretches out far too long, taking a seeming eternity to unfold with no particularly satisfying payoff, punctuated by lame attempts at humor that mostly fail to land. To its credit, this offering features fine performances by its two principals, as well as superb portrayals by Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan in supporting roles, all of whom have garnered Golden Globe Award nominations in the acting categories. There’s also much to be said for its gorgeous cinematography and atmospheric Carter Burwell original score. However, it’s truly mind-boggling to understand how this film has earned eight total Globe nods and four National Board of Review awards, among numerous other inflated and questionable accolades. This tediously dull, slow-paced effort falls woefully short of the fine work the filmmaker achieved in previous films like “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2017) and “In Bruges” (2008) (not to mention its lack of the snappy on-screen chemistry that Farrell and Gleeson achieved in that off-beat comedy), accomplishments that make this release come across as a great disappointment by comparison. In fact, at the risk of overstatement, “Banshees” could have been edited down to a short, and it still likely would have been a letdown. Catch this one at your peril; at the very least, it’s now available for online streaming, so you shouldn’t have to venture out if you really want to watch it.… Expand

4 of 4 users found this helpful40

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GmanJaponesJan 18, 2023

It's probably a good movie for Irish people, as they can relate to the characters and the way they express/speak, as well as their attitudes and general way of behaving. Unfortunately, from the point of view of an average Brazilian, it'sIt's probably a good movie for Irish people, as they can relate to the characters and the way they express/speak, as well as their attitudes and general way of behaving. Unfortunately, from the point of view of an average Brazilian, it's downright boring.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

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BillbobismynameNov 21, 2022

I didn't like this movie. I like a good dark comedy. I really liked In Bruges. I have watched multiple times. I found this just consistently dark. The first thing physical that Colm did was darkly funny, but that was about it. I suppose theI didn't like this movie. I like a good dark comedy. I really liked In Bruges. I have watched multiple times. I found this just consistently dark. The first thing physical that Colm did was darkly funny, but that was about it. I suppose the cinematography was nice and the actors did their jobs well. I just didn't like the story that well.… Expand

4 of 6 users found this helpful42

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itcrowdDec 11, 2022

Rubbish. The film, set in Ireland in 1923, opens with "Polegnala E Todora" from "Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares", a piece of Bulgarian music recorded in 1975, and continues its downhill slide thereafter.

Very dark and depressing. Plot,Rubbish. The film, set in Ireland in 1923, opens with "Polegnala E Todora" from "Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares", a piece of Bulgarian music recorded in 1975, and continues its downhill slide thereafter.

Very dark and depressing. Plot, characters, and dialogue unbelievable.

Very clichéd picture of Ireland with every stereotype deployed: Guinness, musicians, clergy, a mad mystic woman. There are very vague references to the Civil War of 1923 (loud booms from the mainland) but not explored further or explained - could probably have been removed and the film wouldn't have suffered. And how the fighting, the vast majority of which took place in and around Dublin, could be heard from a small island off the West Coast of Ireland, is one of the many inconsistencies that the audience is required to ignore.

My biggest criticism is that the audience is required to do too much work to help plug the leaking holes in the plot. It is just a story, at the end of the day, but you have to suspend too many critical faculties to help it limp along.

The worst film I've seen this year, unfortunately.… Expand

2 of 3 users found this helpful21

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Amanm063Jan 18, 2023

I don't know what the hype was about. It was a boring movie. The acting was good but the plot, nah. They don't have a solid foundation for the movie let alone the motive.

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

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cestamykatNov 12, 2022

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Drab, dark, depressing, depraved and yet being marketed as a comedy. Stupid plot and despicable characters. Walked out right after the donkey was killed. Shame on the writer, director and producer for this crap bucket.… Expand

3 of 7 users found this helpful34

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liquoricebulletJan 2, 2023

This was the simultaneous the most boring and most disturbing movie I've ever watched, and I honestly wish I'd never watched it.

1 of 5 users found this helpful14

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OlivierPielDec 16, 2022

What if the Forrest Gump and Lieutenant Dan scenes had been set in 1923 rural Ireland? Also I wonder if the director, on purpose, created one of the dullest and fakest Irish dialogue/plot -whose plot is about the dullness of life- just toWhat if the Forrest Gump and Lieutenant Dan scenes had been set in 1923 rural Ireland? Also I wonder if the director, on purpose, created one of the dullest and fakest Irish dialogue/plot -whose plot is about the dullness of life- just to take a piss at snobbish American movie critics and movie audience who would completely miss this "Second degré" as we say in French. For sure, the message is about "guys, you should definitely read more and talk less, be less ...inert like you are right now watching this ****
Even the acting feels suspicious. There is a hint of mischievious self-awareness in Colin Farrel and Gleeson slightly off delivery.

3 points for the photography and Ireland.… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

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rockytopthadMar 2, 2023

Why, oh why, do movie critics have such a fetish for ridiculous, emotionally manipulative films? Is it Artistic? I guess. If the definition of art includes a requirement for shocking plot twists and/or an achingly sad script. “Oooooo…I didn’tWhy, oh why, do movie critics have such a fetish for ridiculous, emotionally manipulative films? Is it Artistic? I guess. If the definition of art includes a requirement for shocking plot twists and/or an achingly sad script. “Oooooo…I didn’t see THAT coming” the smug movie critic mutters to the stranger sitting next to him. “So dark! So fancy! Definitely 5 stars!” And, yes, I get the symbolism, the civil war, the foreshadowing bc I remember it from high school English class, in which, by the way, a 15 year old student would get an “A” but with the comment, “you clearly poured your heart into this short story. You’re on your way to becoming a great writer. Realize, however, that you don’t have to include every literary device in each story. Pace yourself.”… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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LittlegizmoFeb 3, 2023

I don't know what the hype was about. It was a boring movie... The acting was good but the plot, nah. They don't have a solid foundation for the movie let alone the motive.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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Mauro_LanariJan 27, 2023

(Mauro Lanari)
I take this opportunity to explain the matter (perhaps) once and for all. Nietzsche's anthropology is dualistic by contrasting the active nihilists to the passive ones: while the former accept the status quo for "amor fati",(Mauro Lanari)
I take this opportunity to explain the matter (perhaps) once and for all. Nietzsche's anthropology is dualistic by contrasting the active nihilists to the passive ones: while the former accept the status quo for "amor fati", the latter fail to adapt to it as they do not possess a disposition that allows them to accept survivalism with its degenerative process until the extinction. Alternative dichotomies such as floats vs. drowned, integrated vs. apocalyptics, settled vs. marginalized, conformists vs. eccentrics are more imprecise. So far, humanity has shown that it falls within such a binary category, idem the entire planetary culture. Twentieth-century existentialism was a mass phenomenon that disappeared in the second half of the period. Earlier we find the Greek epic poems from Homer to Hesiod, the pre-Socratic philosophy, the Athenian tragedy that reached the point of no return with Sophocles' "Oedipus at Colonus" in 401. In the Jewish sphere, the further root of Western thought, we find the defeatism of Qohèlet. The problem lies in the fact that they have only ever known how to complain or protest, never suggesting anything constructive. The active nihilists are instead Epicureans, Horatians, Juvenalesques, cantors of the "carpe diem". Even art and therefore cinema can be traced back to the two Nietzschean typologies, and individual authors or single works can even oscillate unsteadily between one pole and another. "Tertium datur"? In effect, yes. In 524, the year before he was killed, Boethius exposes in the "De consolatione philosophiae" a dilemma that will find a more rigorous formula with Leibniz in the "Essais de Théodicée", written in 1705 and published in 1710: "Si Deus est, unde malum? Si non est, unde bonum?". For atheists, materialists and immanentists the opportunity opened up to analyze the second horn of the dilemma. How many took advantage of it? How many finally began to provide a proposal? To my knowledge, only one thinker: Ernst Bloch, starting with his main book released in '59. That is, our debut attempt beyond active and passive nihilisms dates back to only a few decades ago. Shocking and devastating. With this, even McDonagh cannot but refer to the "despair of Kierkegaard" (Federico Pontiggia), to the "funereal twilight of Beckett" (Enrico Azzano), "not for nothing Samuel Beckett is Dubliner and certainly one of the strongest referents, [...] very skilled weaver of plots and dialogues mixed in the absurd" (Emanuela Martini), "it looks like a comedy of the absurd in costume written by Beckett" (Carlo Valeri). And why not even 1938 Sartre's "La Nausée"? Stop with this rearguard, after decades and millennia I demand from culture something that at least [re]starts from Bloch.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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LiveFoxFeb 5, 2023

Decent acting. More of a dark comedy, to me, but without the laughs. Simply a dark, and very stupid movie. I was expecting a revelation regarding how mad-eye moody was mentally handicapped. Didn’t come, despite my opinions about the character.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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SpiritjiFeb 9, 2023

i totally agree with your girlfriend. I am 71 and it is the worst movie i have ever seen. i am telling everyone i know not to see it. Why is so so awful?............I saw one reviewer who said his wife became physically ill and I could easilyi totally agree with your girlfriend. I am 71 and it is the worst movie i have ever seen. i am telling everyone i know not to see it. Why is so so awful?............I saw one reviewer who said his wife became physically ill and I could easily see that. What stood out for me was that every sentence that came out of someones mouth was a Klesha. What is a kleshas ? Mental states that cloud the mind and manifest in unwholesome action. (ie anger, fear, jealousy etc) Every word was dark, depressing, unkind, mean..........The movie just kept going downhill darker and darker.........I expected it would balance....that there would be some sparks of kindness but none.........Cutting off his fingers because the depressed guy spoke to him when his love in life was playing music is supposed to be art??? In whose world........plus made the Irish look stupid and mean. My ancestors are from the Irish Islands and this movie was really an insult to them............… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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