Banshees Of Inisherin review: The ending is far from perfect – but being dumped never is

THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN

(15) 109mins                   

★★★★☆

BEING dumped is always tough.

A little like mourning a death, there are various stages to the grief of brutal abandonment: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

AP

The Banshees Of Inisherin is a rare story of male friendship staring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson[/caption]

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The first hour of the film is a thing of beauty and intrigue then it settles into a strange and tragic love story[/caption]

But in this modern age of dating apps and social media, it’s often easy to find someone or something to soothe the heartache.

Sadly Padraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell) has none of these options.

He lives on the small island of Inisherin — a fictional place set in the Aran Islands — off the coast of Ireland.

It’s 1923, the Irish Civil War has been raging for almost a year and Padraic has suddenly — and brutally — been dumped by his best pal Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) with no explanation.

Padraic lives a very basic life with his sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon) in a small house on the edge of the island.

He spends his days seeing to his cows and spoiling his donkey, Jenny.

Colm appears to be a more complex, thoughtful character.

He’s realised there may only be a few more years to live, so he wants to “do something”.

This means writing music or a story — something that will live on after his death.

In wanting this, he ends his friendship with Padraic, his drinking buddy. He calls him “dull” and “stupid”.

And threatens brutal consequences if he talks to him again.

The simple-but-kind Padraic plods through the emotions of grief and rejection at his own speed, with the first being misunderstanding it as a prank.

When he discovers this isn’t true, he is crushed.

Often with little dialogue, Farrell portrays this incredibly through his energetic eyebrows and furrowed brows.

This story of male friendship, from Martin McDonagh, is rare.

And the claustrophobic sense of island life is often shown beautifully through nosy, letter-opening shop keepers, gossiping priests and a sex-pest policeman.

The first hour is a thing of beauty and intrigue.

Does Colm have a secret plan for this end to friendship?

And if not, how boring can Padraic have been during their years together?

Then it settles into a strange and tragic love story.

The ending is far from perfect. But being dumped never is.

BLACK ADAM

(12A) 124mins

★★☆☆☆

DC’S superhero output has long been hit-and-miss.

Now Black Adam has landed and it’s sadly the latter thanks to a script overstuffed with characters.

AP

Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam is nothing more than a wooden meat machine doing a poor Batman growl impression[/caption]

Set in fictional Kahndaq, a Middle Eastern country run by a crime syndicate called Intergang, 5,000-year-old Teth-Adam (Dwayne Johnson) is awakened.

He was imbued by the powers of Shazam (yes, from the same wizarding source featured in the 2019 movie Shazam!) but he’s a kill-first, ask-questions-later kind of guy.

While the film fails to interrogate the geopolitics of Western forces and the Middle East, the fight scenes are a visual feast of violence.

As Adam adapts to the modern world, he finds himself in conflict with the Justice Society.

Heroes Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell) and Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo) feel superfluous to the story, taking away screen time from Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan) and leader Hawkman (Aldis Hodge) who have more pivotal roles.

The biggest letdown is Johnson himself.

Stripped of his charisma and comic delivery, his Black Adam is nothing more than a wooden meat machine doing a poor Batman growl impression.

DECISION TO LEAVE

(15) 138 mins

★★★★☆

SOUTH Korean film director Park Chan-wook’s latest crime thriller is a contemporary film noir with a Hitchcockian flavour, wrapped up in murder, love and desire.

Co-written by Park and Jeong Seo-Gyeong, who together previously penned The Handmaiden and Thirst, the film centres on Korean police inspector Hae-jun (Park Hae-il), a respectful, married insomniac who throws himself into work in lieu of sleep.

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Park Chan-wook’s Decision To Leave is a contemporary film noir with a Hitchcockian flavour, wrapped up in murder, love and desire[/caption]

The mysterious death of a mountain climber provides a wake-up call and the detective begins investigating widow Seo-rae (Tang Wei), whose reaction seems unusual for a grieving wife.

Park employs a touch of black humour in his morbid storytelling – and there are a couple of great police sidekicks who provide some comic relief.

But there’s also a playfulness in which he captures the dizzy intensity of the taboo romance that develops between the detective and the widow.

The fluid editing maintains the frenetic pace even as a second layer of the story unfolds.

Park and Tang make a compelling couple with palpable chemistry, which keeps you invested in their forbidden love.