Back in 2008, writer/director Martin McDonagh teamed with actors Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson for In Bruges, a darkly meditative — and frequently funny — study of loyalty and death between two contract killers (likely enjoyed only by viewers with broad-minded sensibilities).
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| Pádraic (Colin Farrell, right) makes another effort to determine precisely why he's being shunned by former best friend Colm (Brendan Gleeson), but the latter refuses to engage. |
The time is 1923, the setting the harsh, rocky (and fictitious) island of Inisherin, off the west coast of Ireland. Pádraic Súilleabháin (Farrell), a hard-working milk farmer, lives with his sister Siobhán in a simple rustic house they often share with their pet miniature donkey, Jenny. Eight years have passed since their parents died; the sibling bond is tight and loving.
Every day at 2 p.m., presumably going back years, Pádraic has walked over to the house belonging to his best friend, Colm Doherty (Gleeson); the two then head over to the local pub: the island’s sole form of entertainment.
Except this time, as the story begins, Colm refuses to answer the door. Pádraic peers through a window, and sees Colm inside, silently brooding at a table. Pádraic knocks again; Colm doesn’t move.
Bewildered, Pádraic heads to the pub by himself; the publican, Jonjo (Pat Shortt), can’t believe his eyes. You’ve had a row, he suggests; Pádraic insists not.
“A’ least, I don’t tink so,” he admits.
Farrell’s expression, thus far, is puzzled and mildly hurt. Assuming that he somehow must be at fault, when Pádraic later corners Colm at a table — the latter also wants his daily pint — Pádraic does what all good friends do, and apologizes for whatever unintended slight may have occurred.
It’s a sincere apology. Farrell’s expression is earnest, his gaze both curious and worried.
Colm’s response is breathtakingly callous: “I just don’ like you any more.”
Blunt as that statement is, Colm’s subsequent explanation is even worse. Being older, he has begun to brood about his mortality, and the fact that — unless things change — he’ll leave nothing behind. He thus refuses to spend another minute with Pádraic — whose simple kindness is “too dull,” and who can spend hours ruminating about what emerges from Jenny’s rear end — in favor of focusing on his fiddle, and composing music that will outlive him. Like Mozart.
Farrell’s wide-eyed reaction prompts laughs, because — at first blush — this seems so ridiculous. To Pádraic, it’s like a parent suddenly disowning a child, for no reason. But when it becomes clear that Colm is serious, Pádraic begins a slow slide into deep sorrow. Farrell’s richly nuanced performance is heartbreaking: the palpable embodiment of unrelenting grief.
Siobhán, loyal to the core, confronts Colm; although he’s more candid with her, he remains resolute. Her parting shot — “It’s not nice” — is clearly true; how else are we to judge Colm’s behavior?
Colm has earlier admitted, during church confession with the local priest (David Pearse), that he’s suffering from depression. (As it eventually turns out, he’s obviously suffering from quite a lot more.)
As the days pass, Pádraic refuses to give up. Eventually exasperated that his simple wish — that Pádraic leave him alone — is being ignored, Colm unleashes what we can term a nuclear threat. Surely, that will do the trick … that will demonstrate how serious he is.
We shall see.
As was the case throughout “In Bruges,” Farrell and Gleeson are a droll Mutt ’n’ Jeff pair. Their frequently daft arguments here can’t help being funny (or at least they would be, if the story weren’t so damn dour). When Siobhán, Jonjo and other locals join in, the debate reaches levels of we’d expect from “theater of the absurd” stage productions.
Condon makes Siobhán smart, sensitive and acutely perceptive; she grieves over how her brother’s suffering intensifies. Siobhán also reads books, much to Pádraic’s gentle amusement; we realize, at such moments, that while she loves him absolutely … she also finds him dull. Not that she’d ever admit as much.
Other aspects of island life are similarly dark.
Pádraic is shadowed throughout by Dominic Kearney (Barry Keoghan), the local policeman’s son: a lost, troubled and mildly spectrum young man with no sense of social norms. We get a sense that his clothes are never washed; he follows Pádraic like a lost puppy, naïvely offering silly suggestions on how to repair this breach between friends, while at the same time hoping to become Pádraic’s new drinking buddy.
Koeghan’s performance is beyond forlorn; we ache for Dominic, particularly during his pathetic attempts to chat up Siobhán, whom he has shyly worshipped from afar. More than once, Koeghan comes close to stealing the film from Farrell and Gleeson.
Matters aren’t helped by the fact that Dominic’s father, Peadar (Gary Lydon), is a vicious, violent, rat-bastard who views Colm’s withdrawal as an opportunity to get nastier with Pádraic and Siobhán.
Nor can we overlook the foreboding Mrs. McCormick (Sheila Flitton), an old crone never seen without her walking stick, who grimly prophesies people’s doom. She’s this story’s physical embodiment of a banshee, and she’s creepy as hell. According to myth, those who hear a banshee’s wail, are doomed.
Cinematographer Ben Davis’ sweeping overhead views and intimate, rock-walled countryside pathways make the island beautiful, melancholic and moody. Carter Burwell’s score is similarly thoughtful and morose.
At times, it’s difficult to imagine what McDonagh expects viewers to extract from his unpleasantly bitter and unforgivably brutal little saga. If it’s a parable on Irish stubbornness, and how Pádraic and Colm’s increasingly spiteful falling out reflects how even best friends can be torn apart by the bomb-laden Troubles taking place across Galway Bay, the metaphor is needlessly heavy-handed (no pun intended).
As Davis’ camera sweeps across Inisherin one final time, before the screen goes black, we’re left with a woeful tally: Only one person escapes intact, while all the others are dead, damaged or doomed to remain in this enclosed and unforgiving environment.
That’s an awfully bleak view of humanity.
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