The Banshees of Inisherin Review
A couple days ago I was able to watch The Banshees of Inisherin on HBO Max. Like The Woman King (my review dropped yesterday), this is one of the frontrunners for Best Picture at the Oscars. So I decided to watch and check this movie in hopes that it will (this movie will, I would be shocked if it doesn’t). So here is my review of the movie. Is it good? Do I think it deserves a Best Picture nomination? Let’s get started!
The Good:
When it comes to this movie you have to talk about one thing, the performances. And everybody in this movie is just fantastic, everybody is memorable in this movie. The two leads of this movie are Colin Farrell and Brendan Glesson and they give some of the best and most memorable performances of the year. 2022 is kind of the year of Colin Farrell, between this and The Batman he is having a great year. I think both of them deserve an Oscar nomination, do they deserve to win? That's a different story. But they just disappear in this role, you don’t see either one of them or previous characters they have played. All you see is the characters and that’s when you know you have something special. And Farrell’s acting in one scene in particular at the pub when he’s talking about Glesson being mean is just fantastic. That scene alone might give him a chance at winning an Oscar. Also this is the best that I’ve seen of Barry Keoghan, granted I haven’t seen him in much. I’ve only seen him in this movie, Eternals, and The Batman. But I think he might also deserve some award love, I know he got a Golden Globe nomination. His character is very interesting to the plot, and I thought he was used in an interesting way and played very well.
Another thing here is that it’s just a very interesting story. Where it’s about this friendship between Farrell and Glesson. One day Glesson decides he doesn’t want to be friends with Farrell anymore, and Farrell is kind of confused as to why. So as the movie goes along Farrell is wanting to know more and more as to why Glesson stopped being friends with him. And Glesson keeps getting more and more serious about not wanting to be friends with him. So it’s this super interesting story that I’ve never seen anything like. There’s not an obvious movie to compare this one to. And I think it just comes down to the director, Martin McDonagh who is able to craft this story that makes you feel a lot of different emotions inside of it. Just the way he directs scenes and makes scenes have tension inside of them is greatly impressive.
Speaking of tension, the movie builds tension all through-out the movie. Once the conflict between Farrell and Glesson starts the tension doesn’t let up until the credits roll. And as you move into the backhalf of the movie the movie has your eyes glued to the screen as things go down. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the lengths that Glesson goes with not wanting to be friends with Farrell anymore is pretty extreme, it’s intense what all goes down. And once again, the director Martin McDonagh is one to mention here. Where he just knows how to make scenes look very intense and feel this dread as you see everything start to unfold and fall apart.
This movie might also have one of the best scripts of the year. And Martin McDonagh wrote the script, he produced, wrote, and directed this movie. And he wrote a movie that has all sorts of different emotions. It can be funny at times, the movie does have a nice sense of humor. And the humor flows organically from the interactions amongst the characters. The movie can be very dramatic at points and very emotional. So Martin wrote a script that makes you feel all of those different emotions. And like I said before, this is a very unique and original movie. So when you put those elements together you get a movie that has one of the best scripts of the year. I don’t know who gets nominated for Best Original Screenplay, but this movie has a very good chance at winning it.
Finally, the movie takes place in Ireland and they shot on location. And that means the movie just looks gorgeous. Ireland is a gorgeous looking country, so whenever they shoot on location there it looks great. And I think shooting on location can make movies better, and look better. But it’s not a set made out of wood and what not. So this is one of the best looking movies of the year in my mind.
The Bad:
When it comes to this movie it’s very much an Oscar bait movie. It’s a movie that is very designed and targeted for the Oscars. And since there is so much of that, it’s not the most rewatchable of movies. This isn’t a movie that I could see myself watching a whole lot, I don’t know when I’ll rewatch this movie. And it’s not something that this movie did wrong, the movie did it’s goal really really well. But it’s not a super rewatchable movie in my mind.
As far as specifics about this movie that didn’t fully work for me, there’s not much. I think the first 20-25 minutes does drag a good bit. And therefore I think the first act is the weakest act of the movie for me. The middle and third act are both great, but the first act is easily the weakest for me. And it’s not bad, it’s not that I thought it was straight up bad and boring. But compared to the second and third act, it’s not great. But honestly, that’s a very small issue in the scheme of things. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and thought they knocked it out of the park.
Final Thoughts: The Banshees of Inisherin is a very good character study of these two friends who are slowly drifting apart. The performances across the board are fantastic, everybody is great and I think both Farrell and Glesson deserve Oscar nominations for their work. The movie can be funny, dramatic, and heartfelt. And Martin McDonagh’s direction is great and some of the best of the year. So when it comes to this movie, I can absolutely see why this movie is being talked about for Best Picture. And honestly, I think it has a good chance at winning Best Picture.
The Score: 9.0/10 (A-)
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