The Banshees of Inisherin

The best feel-bad comedy of the year (that doesn’t feature a vomiting sequence set to Swedish punk-rock), about a bloke wundrin’ why his feckin’ fren suddenly start actin’ a gobshite, is going to lose a lot of people due to not telegraphing its punchlines; the most overt it gets is Pádraic Súilleabháin demanding his name be treated with dignity. “Banshees” is consistently funny, though, and expressive, aggressively pursuing narratives about circumstance, loneliness, and prophecy, and while I’d imagine much of middle America will regard it as “another Best Picture nominee I hated”, I think there’s a lot to love here.

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