I missed this when the BFI LFF came to the GFT, so I snapped up the first chance I got to see it. Beautiful! Just beautiful. Loved it.
As the Civil War rages on the mainland, life on the tiny island of Inisherin goes on as it always has, much to the delight of Padraic Suilleabhain (Colin Farrell). He has his home, his devoted sister, and his friend Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson). Or does he? He stops in on Colm for their daily 2 o’clock pint, only to find himself ignored. This trifling interaction sets off a series of events that are by turns darkly comic and deeply melancholy.
What at first seems to be a humorous yarn about the tiny concerns in a tiny place spins out seamlessly into a metaphor for the Civil War in microcosm. The astounding performances at the centre of the film makes the whole thing feel vital and gripping despite the small scale of the drama. From such triflingly little interactions we build our human bonds, and in their breaking comes the breaking of hearts and of worlds.
Farrell plays Padraic with such a deep heart ache, such an open, good and simple nature, that when pain darkens him it feels truly tragic. The score is flecked with this operatic music which at first seems to jokingly contrast with the mundanity of the tale, but grows to become the heart-sore inner voice of the unspoken emotions of the piece.
Brendan Gleeson for his part manages to make identifiable and understandable a character whose actions are antagonistic and almost incomprehensible to Padraic. It’s a harder job to hold the empathy of the audience while not being particularly likeable and when your first act on screen is the withdrawal of human warmth. Yet his sense of his own mortality, his striving for greater fulfillment, to go beyond the confines of their small world in some way, resonates so clearly.
Tying into the allegory for the Civil War, is this theme of what is worth living for, a higher ideal or human bonds. Colm commits to his music as a thing which will outlive him, that will be a measure of a life well spent. For Padraic there is nothing higher than kindness to one another, and that in the loss of that, comes falling down all else.
Truly beautiful film, in the writing, the acting, the cinematography, the score, everything!