The Banshees Of Inisherin

THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN (2022) Cert 15 
Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon. Directed by Martin McDonagh. (1h 39m)

Come and celebrate St Patrick's Day at Parade House, with the film which launched The Screening Room in February last year. The Times called it “Simply perfect”. It's a work of pure genius from writer-director Martin McDonagh, reuniting the two stars of his previous masterpiece In Bruges in another humorous but dark-toned tale of friendship and obsession. Set this time in the incomparably beautiful landscape of rural Ireland in the 1920s, it manages somehow to be laugh-out-loud funny and heart-wrenchingly sad both at the same time. The film collected a shelf-full of awards in 2023 (though sadly no Oscars). Colin Farrell in particular delivers a career-best performance as a small-time farmer struggling to come to terms with the fact his philosophically minded drinking buddy Gleeson has abruptly ended their years-long friendship for no apparent reason. “A flawless tragicomedy of male friendship gone sour” said Mark Kermode in The Observer. Raise a glass of Guinness to St Patrick in Ushers Bar and then settle down to laugh and cry with a group of Ireland's finest actors and filmmakers.