Movie reviews: Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson reunite in by far the best movie of 2022

Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson’s black comedy The Banshees of Inisherin is the best movie of the year. Film critic Leigh Paatsch explains why. See his list of other movies to watch.

Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell in the best movie of the year, The Banshees of Inisherin.

THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN (M)

Director: Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards …)

Starring: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan.

Rating: *****

You can’t teach an old friend new tricks.

There is nothing ever really much of anything happening in The Banshees of Inisherin. But there is always something moving.

And that something is your emotions. This remarkable work connects with a viewer’s feelings, and then gently shifts them at will, in ways few screen experiences ever do.

This is the best movie of 2022, by a clear and telling distance.

The stark, almost sobering simplicity of the plot of The Banshees of Inisherin camouflages a storytelling steamroller that flattens a viewer’s defences with ease.

The action, if you can call it that, unfolds on a small island named Inisherin, located a few kilometres off the coast of the Irish mainland in the early 1920s.

There can’t be more than 100 or so people living on Inisherin, which means everybody is aware of everybody else’s business. Whether they want to be or not.

The latest piece of news sweeping Inisherin like a cyclone concerns two lifelong pals, Colm (Brendan Gleeson), and Padraic (Colin Farrell).

It has dawned on Colm that life might be passing him by. If he is ever going to catch up again, it might be time to get rid of the dead weight holding him back.

Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in The Banshees of Inisherin.

That’s why he has told Padraic that he no longer wishes to be his friend. Furthermore, Colm has demanded that Padraic refrain from speaking to him ever again. Not a single word.

Should this silence be broken, there will be consequences. Shocking consequences. The kind of consequences that transcend the mere fracturing of a friendship.

The impact of this unforeseen parting of the ways impacts virtually everyone (and everything) on the island in some way.

Just ask Padraic’s long-suffering housemates, his sister Siobahn (Kerry Condon) and his pet donkey Jenny. Or the fellas down at the pub. Or the ladies over at the general store.

They all know Com’s ultimatum has started something which will not end well for either party involved. It just may be that life on Inisherin will never be the same again as well.

Courtesy of exemplary acting from Farrell and Gleeson – both of whom hit astonishing career peaks here – and a refined calibre of writing and direction from the great Martin McDonagh (who first worked with the pair on the classic In Bruges), The Banshees of Inisherin is as flawless a movie as you will see these days.

The screenplay is a weapon of mass seduction in its own right, capable of pivoting from funny to sad, wise to silly, and then tender to brutal, sometimes in the space of one quietly spoken conversation.

The Banshees of Inisherin is in cinemas from December 25

PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH (PG)

***1/2

Been a while since that veteran Shrek-franchise scene-stealer Puss (Antonio Banderas) had a movie to call his own. Just over a decade, in fact. Which, in a funny kind of way, puts this sequel in the same territory as Avatar: The Way of Water. While no-one will rank The Last Wish as hitting the same high benchmarks, it is still very, very good for a family-friendly offering released in the holiday season. The key here is a most involving storyline, which goes a little deeper and gets a little darker than most mainstream animated titles. After realising he has already used up eight of his allotted nine lives, Puss retreats into a most uncomfortable retirement by joining the feline stable of a most unstable cat lady. However, as they say in the classics, you can’t keep a good cat down.

Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas are back as Kitty Softpaws and Puss in Boots in The Last Wish.

Puss is jolted back into saving-the-day mode by the unwelcome appearance of the gangster dame Goldilocks (Florence Pugh) and her three hench-bears (Ray Winston, Olivia Colman and Samson Kayo). They’re looking for a valuable whatchamacallit known as The Wishing Star that just might have the life-multiplying solution to Puss’ lives-lacking problem. Not much to be faulted here, as the jokes are on point, the visuals are picture-book perfect, and the energy levels never drop for a moment. Oh, and there’s even some room cleared to make way for the welcome return of the incomparable Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek).

General release from Sunday, December 25

Sally Hawkins in The Lost King. Picture: Graeme Hunter

THE LOST KING (M)

***

A modestly appointed, yet consistently endearing crowd-pleasing affair, based on a true story. This is how an amateur British historian named Philippa Langley turned a minor obsession with a misunderstood monarch into a major archaeological discovery. All but untrained in the bookish, desk-bound science needed to become “a private detective of the past”, Langley (a lovely performance as always from Sally Hawkins) uncovers the vaguest of leads that eventually prompt the shock discovery of the remains of King Richard III. Underneath the car park of a suburban shopping centre, of all places. To be honest, we’ve seen this kind of movie many times before. Nevertheless, there is a constant sincerity and humour (co-star Steve Coogan also worked on the screenplay) that keeps viewers connected until the end.

General release from Monday, December 26