2008 marked the directorial film debut of Martin McDonagh with his black comedy, In Bruges. The modern classic, regarded as one of the greatest Tarantino-esque films ever made, landed McDonagh an Oscar nomination for his original screenplay about a pair of Irish hitmen laying low after a hit gone wrong in the titular Belgian city of Bruges. Irish actors Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson starred as the hitmen, receiving widespread acclaim for their electric on-screen chemistry.
In 2012, the Irish playwright turned movie writer-director found similar commercial and critical success with Seven Psychopaths, another black comedy that also starred Colin Farrell among Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, and Christopher Walken. But in 2017, McDonagh outdid himself with Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, garnering seven Oscar nominations, two wins for its stars Sam Rockwell and Frances McDormand (whose golden statue was briefly stolen at an Oscars after-party), and $160 million at the box office from a film that cost roughly $15 million.
Following the critical and commercial success of Three Billboards, McDonagh has brought the old Irish band from In Bruges back together in his upcoming period drama/black comedy, The Banshees of Inisherin. The film received a 13-minute standing ovation at its Venice premiere last month. Though its plot concerns the sudden breakup of two lifelong friends on an island off the coast of Civil War-torn Ireland, the anti-buddy comedy reunited director Martin McDonagh with stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in the rolling green hills of the proud island nation they all call home.
Farrell, Gleeson, and McDonagh Wanted to Work Together Again
It all started in the mid-2000s when Martin McDonagh first got the idea for the script of In Bruges, which he explained to Film4 back in 2008, saying:
“I went to Bruges by train from London for a couple days. I was just struck by how cinematic the place was, strange medieval gothic architecture and beautiful canals. By the middle of the second day I was bored out of my head because there’s not an awful lot to do apart from go to the churches and the museums. So I just wanted to get drunk or get laid. And that became two characters in my head, the culture lover and the drunken whore."
For the bickering, back-and-forth dialogue from the In Bruges script to work, McDonagh knew he needed two talented yet distinct Irish actors to play his culture lover and his drunken whore. But he got more than he bargained for with Brendan Gleeson as the grumpy-faced culture lover and Colin Farrell as the neurotic, leprechaun-like drunken whore. Together the actors created one of the most palpably contentious on-screen dynamics of all buddy comedies, comparable to that of Jeff Bridges and John Goodman in The Big Lebowski or Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy in the first Shrek film.
Not only was McDonagh impressed by the terrific performances he got out of his leads on In Bruges, but he was also profoundly grateful for their professionalism, telling Film4 the actors "never once were bossy or forceful working with a first-time director, just the opposite. In fact, they helped me along every step of the way.” The only question, then, is why it took McDonagh fourteen years to get back together with Farrell and Gleeson.
On the one hand, the life of a film director moves at a magma pace compared to actors who can jump from project to project. But in the case of Banshees, McDonagh told The Hollywood Reporter that he took his time because the three of them agreed they “didn’t want to do anything lesser than In Bruges or anything that would disappoint an In Bruges fan.”
The Official Trailer Hints at Some of the Writer-Director’s Trademark Comedic Violence
If the official trailer for The Banshees of Inisherin is any indication, fans of In Bruges will have their patience rewarded. Farrell and Gleeson's contentious buddy dynamic is palpable as ever. But for all of its bantering two-liners, the Banshees trailer can only hint at McDonagh’s signature black humor, with Gleeson’s character so adamant about ending his friendship with Farrell’s character that he threatens to cut off a finger every time Farrell’s character speaks to him.
The trailer shows that supporting cast mates Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan (who recently cameoed as The Joker in The Batman against Farrell’s Penguin) appear equally up to the task of nailing the McDonagh humor. And the director claims that, much like Farrell and Gleeson’s, Condon and Keohan’s characters were written explicitly for them. Talented as these up-and-coming supporting actors may be in the film, Farrell and Gleeson also had to share the screen with some unexpectedly impressive on-screen talent.
Farrell and Gleeson Had to Compete With an Equestrian Scene-Stealer
Strangely enough, one important side character from the Banshees script is a dog, a border collie named Jenny, whose role becomes crucial to the story in one particular sequence. Stranger still, like Peter Sellers stealing the show from David Niven in the original The Pink Panther (1963), there was another four-legged character in Banshees whose role was much smaller in the original script but was expanded during production after the director and producers were pleasantly surprised by the level of performance they were capturing.
Speaking at a Q&A at TIFF, McDonagh said:
“The more we worked with the horse, the beautiful horse, the more scenes we wanted to put her in, weirdly... We added Minnie, [which] was the name of the horse, to lots more scenes. I kinda love that aspect that these animals, supposedly brute animals, are almost more thoughtful and caring... than the human beings.”
These farm animals weren’t the only thing competing for the frame from the human stars of the film.
The Film’s Setting Is Fictional, but Its Real-Life Locations Are Almost Too Beautiful to Be Believed
Like the New Mexico desert in the hit television series Breaking Bad, Ireland itself became a character in Banshees. Though the film is set on the fictional and titular Irish island of Inisherin, it was filmed on the real Irish islands of Inishmore and Achill, where McDonagh would often visit family growing up. The influence of the Irish coastal landscape on Martin McDonagh in Banshees is evident from these childhood visits as the locations and cinematography are undeniably reminiscent of another film, Calvary (2014), which was written and directed by Martin’s older brother, John Michael McDonagh. Calvary, like Banshees, prominently features shots of its star Brendan Gleeson squinting at the Atlantic Ocean, seemingly awash with the glory of the Irish coast. And why shouldn’t he be?
In Bruges alumni Martin McDonagh, Colin Farrell, and Brendan Gleeson invite American audiences to bring a friend (on second thought, maybe don’t bring a friend to this one) and become lost in the beautiful scenery of Ireland and in the eyes of that horse, “the beautiful horse” when The Banshees of Inisherin hits theaters this October the 21st.