The Banshees of Inisherin

Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson play feuding frenemies in Martin McDonagh’s latest film, set on an Irish coast in 1923. The island of Inisherin, a rustic windswept rock off the coast of Ireland, does not appear on any real-world maps, but its geography is unmistakable. Not only because the sweaters and the sheep, the pints of Guinness and the thatched roofs bespeak a carefully curated Irish authenticity, but also because what happens on this island locates it firmly in an imaginary region that might be called County McDonagh. This is a place, governed by the playful and perverse sensibility of the dramatist and filmmaker Martin McDonagh, where the picturesque and the profane intermingle, where jaunty humor keeps company with gruesome violence. The boundaries of the realm extend from Spokane, Wash., to the Belgian city of Bruges by way of Missouri and various actual and notional Irish spots. “The Banshees of Inisherin,” McDonagh’s new film, embellishes the cartography without necessarily breaking new ground. It’s a good place to start if you’re new to his work, and cozily — which is also to say horrifically — familiar if you’re already a fan.

Other McDonagh hallmarks include a breakneck, swaybacked plot, by turns hilarious and grim, painted over with a nearly invisible varnish of sentimentality. It’s not necessary to believe what you see — it may, indeed, not be possible — but you can nonetheless find yourself beguiled by the wayward sincerity of the characters and touched by the sparks of humanity their struggles cast off. And impressed by the craft of the actors and the crew (which here includes the cinematographer Ben Davis, the composer Carter Burwell and the costume designer Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh). Perhaps above all, you are apt to be tickled, sometimes to gales of laughter, by the spray of verbal wit that characterizes the McDonagh dialect.

Genres:Drama, Comedy

Director:Martin McDonagh

Cast:Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon