It’s almost half a decade since Irish director Martin McDonagh had his breakout with 2017’s “Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missouri.” “In Bruges” and “Seven Psychopaths” are cult films, to be sure, but ‘Billboards’ was the director’s first critical sensation. The film pulled in $160 million at the global box office, nearly five times as much as “In Bruges.” And the movie also won Oscars for Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell’s performances, along with a Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay nomination for McDonagh.
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That makes McDonagh’s follow-up, “The Banshees Of Inisherin,” one of the year’s most anticipated movies. And as the film approaches its likely world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in August, according to Variety, more details about the new movie are out and about. “In Bruges” stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson reunite in the new film in a similar odd-couple set-up, and that’s already exciting. But new plot details foretell that the banter between the two actors may be more poignant this time around.
“Inisherin” follows two old friends on opposite sides of the Irish Civil War in 1923 and how a friendship already at an end devolves into something even more violent and miserable. It’s not as if “In Bruges,” and all of McDonagh’s other work, doesn’t have a sad streak to it, but this movie ups the emotive ante. “I wanted to tell a breakup story,” McDonagh told Vanity Fair in his first interview about the film. “This is about things getting inexorably worse from a simple, sad starting point.” With Farrell on Gleeson as fallen-out friends, expect a similar dynamic to McDonagh’s 2008 film but an altogether different kind of story.
McDonagh elaborated on why he wanted with Farrell and Gleeson again and why he wanted “Inisherin” to be a departure from the last time the trio worked together. “This is much more difficult terrain,” said McDonagh. “The love was there, like in any broken-down relationship, but it was interesting to have them not have that ease with each other—because they love each other as actors, as people, but they cannot have that onscreen.” McDonagh strived for the two actors to mine different sides of their personas for their respective roles. “I wanted to make something that someone who likes “In Bruges” would go with, but that could be a little more, at least at the outset, odder or weirder—and definitely something different.” So, “Inisherin” is a Martin McDonagh movie, but it’s a different beast than what audiences have seen from him before.
Or perhaps the film could be called a homecoming of sorts for the director. “Inisherin” is the first movie McDonagh shoots in his native Ireland, and the film’s chamber-drama set-up harks back to the early-career plays that first put him on the industry map. McDonagh shot the film on the islands of Inishmore and Achill, near where his parents live and where he grew up. He also strived for period authenticity in the movie, having characters speak in the local dialect of the 1923 setting. And if audiences can’t understand the film’s dialogue, well, too bad, said McDonagh. “When I’m watching “Mean Streets” or “Goodfellas,” I’m hearing 90% of it,” he said. “I’ll miss some Italian or New York dialogue, every couple of lines—but it doesn’t matter. I’m going with it.”
And then there’s the backdrop of the Irish Civil War, which, next to The Troubles, is one of Ireland’s most violent and tragic periods as a nation. “The Irish Civil War was between two sides who, a year before, were on the same side and fighting the British and the British Empire,” said McDonagh. “The tragedy of that war was that everyone was close friends—and then they were killing each other.” That sense of bonds swiftly broken as friends abruptly turn into enemies is the backdrop to Farrell and Gleeson’s falling out that starts “Inisherin,” and it only worsens from there.
And Farrell and Gleeson aren’t the only McDonagh collaborators who return to work for the director in “Inisherin.” Conor Burwell returns to score the film after he did so for “Three Billboards.” That film’s cinematographer, Ben Davis, also returns to work on “Inisherin.” Irish actress Kerry Condon, best known stateside for her role in “Better Call Saul,” is also in the movie after having had roles in McDonagh’s early plays decades ago. As for notable newcomers? Barry Keoghan, also Irish, works with McDonagh for the first time as a young cop who gets caught up in Farrell and Gleeson’s bitter squabble.
As the film world awaits word on when “The Banshees Of Inisherin” will have its world premiere (and, again, Venice is the likely destination for it), remember that the film has a fall theatrical release. The movie hits theaters on October 21, courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. Check out the first-look photos below.
