McDonagh’s Masterpiece: “The Banshees of Inisherin” (2022)
Here’s a hot take: no one has a more complete mastery of the English language than the Irish and few come close to the long tradition of marrying crushed dreams and stunted lives with gallows humor in quite the same way. There is a rich vein of black, absurdist humor that, if it doesn’t heal the gaping wounds of existential dread, is mined expertly for cauterizing them. Martin McDonagh has released a cinematic masterpiece in “The Banshees of Inisherin”. It may be his most complete statement as a filmmaker and this is saying something. Like many, I love “In Bruges”; “Seven Psychopaths” is a gem that I wish more people had seen; and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” may have been his best film of the three. I hate “best of” on principle, and on any given day, I might well have said “In Bruges” instead. Hell, I can’t even choose and I wrote that idiotic sentence. However, I do know this: “The Banshees of Inisherin” is his masterpiece. At lest, in cinema. McDonagh’s sta...