Top Line Thoughts: This movie was not on my radar at all until it premiered at the Venice Film Festival and it felt like suddenly everyone was talking about it. It is definitely not like many movies I have seen before but I really enjoyed it. Writer/Director Martin McDonagh is originally a playwright and you can feel that in the movie. It is heavy on the dialogue and allegory. Everything is deeper than what happens on the surface, but what the movie is really about or what this story represents is more up for interpretation. The story itself is quite simple. It depicts the end of a friendship and the ensuing fallout. While the plot is fairly straightforward, it is the emotion of the story that cuts deep. The breakdown of a relationship is something almost everyone can relate to and it is portrayed very sharply. The cinematography is also stunning and just made me want to go back to Ireland the entire time. The scenery and the accents. I could listen to the characters talk all day long (but when watching this movie I highly suggest using the closed captioning if you actually want to understand what they’re saying). I would recommend this movie but it is definitely not traditional, full of dark humor, quirky characters, and allegorical plot.

Spoiler Section: I’ve heard this described as the “ultimate breakup movie”. It’s really about losing people in your life, growing apart, the breakdown of relationships, and closure or lack thereof. Colin Farrell’s character, Pádraic, represents true loneliness and loses everyone (including pets) that he was close to in the end. He ends up turning his former best friend Colm, played by Brendan Gleeson, into a contentious enemy just to have any semblance of a relationship with him. Colm, who initiated the break-up between the friends, has his own set of complicated issues. His strong and stubborn ideas and opinions grow extreme to the point where he cuts off his own fingers to prove a point, even to the detriment of the music career he is so passionate about. That is really where the movie takes a sharp turn into the absurd when it shifts from mellow conversations about friendship and wrong vs. right into self-mutilation and violence to demonstrate the seriousness of one’s beliefs. The movie does lean on a strong sense of morality as terms like “nice” and “not nice” are thrown around a lot with heavy importance. Despite the insanity of the fingers subplot and the profoundly sad ending of the film, I really enjoyed the dark humor and laughed out loud more than once. The dialogue is very witty and sharp and the sincere performances of all the actors, but particularly Farrell, earn laughs that break up the heaviness of the movie. While on the surface a slightly ridiculous and specific film, the emotional core of Banshees is painfully relatable and will resonate with anyone who knows how it feels to lose a relationship of any kind. 

2023 Count: 3 seasons, 4 movies