The Banshees of Inisherin

Movie: The Banshees of Inisherin

Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Directing, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor (twice), Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Score, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing

How I watched: Netflix

When I fell asleep: nope

When it had me: Colin Farrell's performance got me right away

When it lost me: The end

What systems does it challenge: War, Pride (is that a thing?)

Content Warning: Animal Harm, Self Harm, Sexual Abuse

This review is more a story about my own hang ups than it is about the movie. Here's what happened:

When I have all of these movies to watch this time of year, one of my favorite things is not knowing anything about them. I love going in blind with no expectations and just seeing where the film takes me, so I typically do not read up on the movies at all.

For this movie I had seen it listed as a comedy and saw that some of the performances were delightful, so I had very little info and I made assumptions about how funny it was going to be. So over the holiday I sat my whole family down to watch a delightful comedy about a couple of cranky old Irishmen. Three generations of family all gathered around on my recommendation so that we could laugh it out together.

I had missed the part about "dark comedy" and the room soon became filled with a lot of WTF energy. One family member tapped out immediately. About 40 minutes in my dad sighed audibly and announced that he was going to bed. So I sat there stewing in the juices of "oh no, oh no, I picked the movie and everyone is hating it and now I will live with the shame of this for a hundred years". Some of you know the feeling.

Anyway, it made it very hard for me to enjoy the film the way I would have if I had sat down to it by myself. I did find bits of it very funny, and other bits very moving and other bits, completely confusing. Colin Farrell really carried the whole thing for me with his simple (but burdensome) love for his friend.

The ending left me with that sort of "Huh. So that happened," feel, which is not my favorite way to leave a film but it was enjoyable and interesting the whole way through. I get what they were trying to say with the film but it also didn't land in the last scene in that satisfactory way...it morphed into being at some point in the next couple of days. I do wish I could have a do over and see it for the first time again.