The Banshees of Inisherin

It’s 1923, and on the fictional island of Inisherin the sounds of the Irish civil war can be heard across the water, providing suitable background noise for the internecine struggles to come. Every day at 2 pm, dairy farmer Pádraic (Colin Farrell) calls on his best friend, Colm (Brendan Gleeson), and the two head to the pub. They’re a chalk-and-cheese pair: the former a simple soul who can talk for hours about horse poo; the latter “a thinker” who writes music, plays the fiddle and falls prey to bouts of existential despair. Circumstance has made them inseparable.

Today, however, is different. When Pádraic knocks, Colm simply sits in his chair, smoking. Depressed by a sense of time slipping away, and determined to do something creative with whatever years he has left, Colm has decided to cut Pádraic out of his life, ridding himself of the “aimless chatting” of “a limited man”. The Banshees of Inisherin is full of quotable, laugh-out-loud moments that meld odd-couple comedy with toxic bromantic satire. There’s real sadness, too, and visually, cinematographer Ben Davis creates painterly interiors that recall the canvases of Vermeer.

This film was chosen by British film critic Mark Kermode.