BANSHEES OF INISHERIN - BFI London Film Festival 2022 - Day 9

There is much to admire in Martin McDonagh's THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN, but I left the screening feeling that the movie was less than the sum of its parts. I think what McDonagh is trying to do is to show us the consequences of a mental health crisis on a friendship, and to make an allegory of seemingly pointless violence to the Irish Civil War and consequent Troubles. But while beautifully shot, acted, scored and designed - and full of real belly-laughs and poignant moments - this film felt rather too casual and clumsy in its use of allegory. Indeed, at a pivotal moment of violence, I felt it had jumped the shark. I was brought out of the film and its project, and only the heart-breaking performance from Barry Keoghan brought me back in.

The film starts in media res, with Padraic (Colin Farrell) going to call for his best friend Colm (Brendan Gleeson) for their daily pint, and being rejected with seemingly no explanation. The rest of the film covers the consequences of Colm's decision to unilaterally withdraw from what he describes as Padraic's dullness to focus on his music. But we know the music isn't the point because of what he then does to himself when Padraic fights for his love. In fact, the truth of the matter is hinted at in the confessional box at Church. Colm is in despair.

Maybe despair is the appropriate response to living on a windswept, bleak, gossipy island off the coast of Ireland in the midst of a civil war. But Colm's targeting of the warm-hearted Padraic seems cruel and unnecessary. This is probably McDonagh's point. Only Kerry Condon's literate and no-nonsense sister cuts through both men's escalatingly maddening conflict. Her honesty is a characteristic she shares with Padraic, who has no trouble in pointing out what's happening with the village idiot Dominic (Keoghan) who is actually the most sensitive and observant and heart-breaking character in the whole piece.

The movie is set on Mykonos, which brilliantly doubles for Western Ireland, and is shot beautifully by Ben Davis. Carter Burwell's score adds to the air of melancholy. The performances are uniformally strong with Keoghan and Condon arguably better than the already brilliant lead actors. I just feel that when we get to "that" moment, the movie never recovers, and the vast themes it raises are never properly interrogated. As with EMPIRE OF LIGHT, I felt that the theme of mental health was done a disservice, particularly in the character of Dominic.

In fact, I felt that a lot of the accusations thrown at Aronofsky's THE WHALE are better thrown against this film: that it's too stagey, too claustrophobic; too exploitative of physical extremity; picks up issues of mental health too lightly; is a weak film containing great performances. I felt THE WHALE was a perfect, deeply affecting whole, whereas this was to be admired but also frustrated by.

THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN is rated R and has a running time of 109 minutes. The film played Venice and Toronto 2022 and is playing the BFI London Film Festival. It will be released in the UK and USA on October 21st.

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI - BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Closing Night Gala

With THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI, writer-director Martin McDonagh (IN BRUGES) has created a genuinely surprising, slow-paced character drama that's also scattered with his trademark dark, filthy humour. But don't be fooled by the trailer that's basically a "best of" some of the funniest bits. This is a much slower, darker and in some senses profound drama that he's created before, and to my mind, all the better for it. 

The starting point of the film is that Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand - FARGO) is angry the local police have not found the man that brutally raped and murdered her daughter Angela. In a fit of frustration and pique, she hires three old billboards outside of the town on a little-used road and puts up a provocative sign asking for justice from police Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson - WOTPOTA). This sets of a series of events that seem to spiral out of control in a tat for tat revenge plot.  It pits Mildred against Willoughby and his stupid racist deputy Dixon (Sam Rockwell - MOON) and Dixon against the poor schmuck who sold Mildred the billboard space (Caleb Landry Jones - TWIN PEAKS) and the town against Mildred.  As her violent ex-husband's hapless young girlfriend points out, violence begets violence. And that's the point when Mildred (and we) realise that the point of the film isn't to find out who did it, and to apportion blame, but to get to a point where we can just let it go.

I loved this film for three reasons. First, as with all McDonagh films, there's a strand of nasty humour that I absolutely adore. Second, McDormand's performance is genuinely award-worthy - not simply for the angry swearing but for the profound pain that underlies it, and invokes our sympathy even as she does selfish, near-unhinged things. Third, I am so rarely surprised by cinema, but this movie totally surprised me three times.  It took characters and events in directions I couldn't have predicted but which made sense and surprised me. I have real respect for authors who can take a character that I initially hate and turn my opinion around and that's what happened here - and it was utterly satisfying. 

So a great film - if deeper and darker and more considered in its pacing than McDonagh's previous work. This may disappoint some fans but I hope they appreciate it for the layered and disturbing but ultimately hopeful work that it is. 

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI has a running time of 115 minutes and is rated R. The movie played Venice, London and Toronto 2017. It opens in the USA on November 10th; in Australia and New Zealand on January 1st; in Italy, Spain and the UK on January 12th; in Argentina, Germany and Singapore on January 25th; in Philippines on February 14th; and in France on February 28th. 

London Film Fest 2012 Day 11 - SEVEN PYSCHOPATHS

SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS is the title of a screenplay that lovably drunk Irish screenwriter Martin (Colin Farrell) is struggling with.  He reluctantly accepts the help of his gonzo actor buddy Billy (Sam Rockwell) who as it happens is both shagging the girlfriend of, and has kidnapped the dog of, the local mobster Charlie (Woody Harrelson).   Billy's in cahoots with Christopher Walken's ageing conman, too, adding to the generally whacky cast of characters both in the world of the movie and the second-order fictional world of the film that Martin is writing.  

The problem with Martin McDonagh's follow-up to his wildly successful black, bleak comedy IN BRUGES, is that while it retains that movies quick wit it singularly fails to recreate its narrative drive and compelling central emotional pull.  This may well be because McDonagh chooses to abandon the simpler linear thriller structure of IN BRUGES for an altogether more clever, knowing, movie-within-a-movie satire on Hollywood shootemups.  The result is a movie that is often very funny, consistently smart, but ultimately frustrating - altogether less than the sum of its parts.  

SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS also contains its own critique - a movie whose best line is its title, whose best scene is its stylish Tarantino-esque opening - a movie that admits its female characters are ill-drawn and some of its characters' motivations ill-defined.  What is left, then, for the critic to say? Here's what.  A movie that plays with its own structure and grammar has to be, (viz. Charlie Kauffman) very tightly written indeed. It has to be so neatly constructed that the audience watching it subsconsciously allows the director to play with them, feeling secure that he knows what he's doing.  In other words, for a movie about a screenwriter meandering aimlessly in search of a plot to itself be meandering aimlessly in search of a plot, is ultimately a weak joke. Sure, as Christopher Walken's character puts it, "it's got layers".  But if we don't care about the characters, feel no sense of peril, and become bored of the joke, what's the point?

That said, there's a lot to pass the time with in this movie. Individual pieces of dialogue or visual gags that are inspired.  Having a character refer to "Hans" in a cemetery and then show a grave with the name "Gruber" on it is genuinely funny.  I also like putting Colin Farrell and Sam Rockwell on screen together as the two buddies at the centre of the film. It's a kind of cosmic joke to have two actors who rose to fame and then fizzled out on the back of poor script choices and outlandish personal behaviour.  I also like that forces Farrell into the "straight man" role against Rockwell plays to type.  In smaller roles, Woody Harrelson is, of course, good value, and there's some cheap but still enjoyable stunt casting in the form of Tom Waits and Dean Stockwell.

SEVEN PYSCHOPATHS played Toronto and London 2012. It is currently on release in the USA and Russia. It opens in Chile on Nov 1; in Argentina on Nov 29; in Germany on Dec 6; in Norway on Dec 14; in Denmark on Dec 25; in France on Jan 30; and in the Netherlands in Feb 2013.

IN BRUGES - genre-busting, ball-busting, belly-laughing cinema

Writer-director Martin McDonagh has fashioned a paradoxical movie out of the conventional gangster flick. He makes a movie about two hit-men on the lam. But instead of putting them in a hard-bitten urban setting, he sticks them in a picturesque Medieval town in the backwaters of continental Europe. Instead of having ueber-cool, ueber-scary actors in the lead roles, he casts Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell - the first, a chubby, amiable old man and the latter acting like a petulant six-year old with about as much professional expertise as a muppet. He has a hard-as-nails gangster boss chase down the two hit-men and kick-off a deadly shoot-out. But he casts Ralph Fiennes, darling of posh-boy indie cinema roles, as the East End mob boss. And as for the final shoot-out: he spends as much time having the participants chat about the rules of engagement as he spends watching them shoot each other.

McDonagh's iconoclasm goes beyond casting decisions and subverting the rules of the genre. He has made a movie about hit-men and drug-dealers, and affects a deeply politically incorrect sense of humour. Then again, his movie has a deeply moral and sentimental core. What else is it but a story about self-less love and honour among thieves?

What does it all add up to? IN BRUGES is certainly well-written. It's tightly-structured, and incredibly, sharply funny. It's certainly a pleasure to see Colin Farrell back in form, even if Ralph Fiennes' performance feels like a rip-off of Ben Kingsley in SEXY BEAST. I just have this awful feeling that the movie is so clever, so knowing, so cine-referential that the final scenes lost some of their punch. After all, wasn’t all this talk of honour rather ridiculous? Should we care a fig about these characters at all?

IN BRUGES is already on release in the US, Ireland, Poland, Iceland, Greece and the UK. It opens in May in Israel, Germany, Russia and Norway. It opens in June in Belgium, France and the Netherlands. It opens in Finland in August.