The Banshees of Inisherin tells the story of what happens to two lifelong friends, Padraic and Colm, played by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, when Colm decides he no longer wants to be friends with Padraic. Since they both live on Inisherin, a fictional island off the coast of Ireland, the two men find it difficult to maintain any distance between them. This isn’t helped by the fact that Padraic refuses to accept Colm’s decision to end their friendship. There has been an abundance of praise for the movie and its cast and crew, with nine Oscar nominations between them.

Martin McDonagh is the movie’s writer and director, and he has never been afraid to shock audiences with violence. In previous offerings that include In Bruges and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri McDonagh builds a similar miserable atmosphere, but in Banshees, he takes a quieter approach. Part of this greater sense of stillness is due to Padraic’s sister Siobhan and her level-headed approach to life. In Anthony Lane’s review of the movie in The New York Times, he says, “To her, the men of the island are barely more than boys, ‘all feckin’ boring,’ scrapping uselessly in their soft green playground. She is a grown woman, and she wants out.” But it’s this sensible pedestal she’s placed on that brings the problem.
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The Long-Suffering Woman

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All the male characters in Banshees, from Colm who believes he’s too intelligent for the rest of them, to Dominic, another significant male character, who just wants to have a laugh, are allowed to behave erratically and humorously. In contrast, Siobhan is shown as reasonable and doting. A perfect example is the ongoing argument she has with Padraic who lets his donkey into their house every morning, to which Siobhan sighs and says, “Animals are for outside.” The audience is laughing as a result of her exasperation and his silliness. Padraic is her brother, but she may as well be his wife. She spends her days trying to make peace between Colm and Padraic, then spends her nights crying alone in bed at night. Although (spoiler alert) she leaves the island at the end of the movie, it’s not enough to make up for the fact that she spends the rest of the run-time sighing, crying, and scolding.

The reason that this is an issue is that anyone who is familiar with McDonagh’s work knows that almost everything of importance is expressed through humor or violence. When the only significant woman character in the movie is barred from taking part in those moments, it’s clear that she is not a key component of the story. Whatever intention may be, whether it’s to protect her from the grittier aspects of the story, or to give her greater dignity and intelligence than the male characters, either way, the result is that she is not respected by the story in the same way as the others. Sometimes writing a good and realistic woman means that she needs to be shocking and foul if that’s the world she lives in.

Related: The Banshees of Inisherin: How Martin McDonagh Brought the In Bruges Band Back Together

Male Mental Health

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When Martin McDonagh was asked in an interview on the podcast Kermode and Mayo’s Take if Banshees is about mental health, he answered simply, “Yes.” It’s not hard to make this connection in a movie where a man cuts his oldest friend out of his life and subsequently all the fingers from his hand. Colm, Padraic, and Dominic, are all carefully handled, with different internal struggles from fear of death to loneliness to the effects of abuse. McDonagh’s decision to write and direct such an outright discussion of mental health issues among men is timely and effective. It’s especially important that he, a man, is doing this work to open up discussions between men rather than leaning on the women in their lives to do all the heavy emotional lifting.

With that being said, where does Siobhan fit into this narrative? Fortunately, she isn’t there to save the men from themselves, but that leaves her at something of a loose end. It’s almost as if McDonagh wrote the screenplay without her in it and was later told he needed to add a female character. In cases like this where the story is so wholly focused on its men for a clear and good reason, then adding a woman for the sake of it is arguably worse than not having her there at all.

Related: How Banshees of Inisherin Explores Melancholy With an Oscar Worthy Colin Farrell

A movie like Fight Club is a similar example of a wholehearted critique of masculinity that uses moments of shock and violence to make its point. It also only has one truly significant woman character, Marla. Where they differ, however, is that Marla is given the freedom to be dirty and antagonistic, whereas Siobhan remains polite and put together. Marla is fully integrated into that complex and chaotic world rather than watching sadly from a distance. This is not to say that women must be akin to their male counterparts to be taken seriously. Instead, it’s about making sense in their respective worlds and allowing for a full range of expression beyond what men think is dignified for a woman.