The Animals of ‘Inisherin’

I’ve always found myself easier among animals than people. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like parties, but if there’s a dog there, well, I can cope. A few years ago I toured Ernest Hemingway’s home in Key West, Florida. As a writer and film guy, all the memorabilia in the house was eye-catching, but what delighted me most were all the six-toed cats on the grounds. Hemingway was a lover of felines with extra digits and collected them in high volume, and while Hemingway has been dead since 1961, the cats are the progeny of his original pets.

They are so tame and docile that they will climb right up on your lap. There are no boundaries or fences to hold in the more than fifty felines that live in Hemingway’s two-story domicile-turned-museum, but they don’t try to leave. Why would they? The weather is good, the care is excellent (they are treated like royalty by the caretakers), and they are given priority during tours. As my friends and I entered the Hemingway master bedroom, our guide asked us to keep our voices down. Why? There were two cats sleeping in Hemingway’s bed.

After watching Martin McDonagh’s extraordinary film The Banshees of Inisherin, I thought of the Hemingway home. The main characters of Banshees—Padriac (played by the truly great Colin Farrell) and Colm (a perfectly modulated Brendan Gleeson)—are two men who, after having been friends for a long time, one decides he doesn’t have enough time left to spend another second on a nice but “limited” man.

The Banshees of Inisherin is, on its face, a film about the falling out of a friendship and the comedic and ultimately tragic results of the cratering of that relationship. And while Banshees is very much about those two men and the specifics of their relationship, it’s also about the truth that people will let you down in life and animals typically won’t.

Padriac may be simple, but he is also kind. How many people actually take their dairy cows for a walk? Or let their miniature donkey in the house because when they are forlorn they crave the nearness of a tiny burro? Padriac is that person. There was a time in my life when I was a (hopefully smarter) version of Padriac. I was alone (in terms of not having a partner). However, I had two amazing dogs that helped me get through each and every day. Yet, like Padriac, I still reached out for human contact. Often with people who, well, let’s say I could have made better choices.

One could argue that Padriac could have made a better choice in a friend than Colm, but the fictional island of Inisherin, off the coast of Ireland, is so sparsely populated that it could be argued that the friend pickings are pretty damn slim. And because Padraic is somewhat (if sweetly) dim, he likely didn’t pick up on the fact that for many years, Colm was simply tolerating him. A heartbreaking scene takes place in the island’s sole watering hole where Padriac confronts Colm and an argument ensues about the value of being “nice.” Colm argues that nice people aren’t remembered, but that people like Mozart are. Padriac responds by essentially saying that being nice is its own reward, and wondering aloud if Colm was ever nice at all. The pained expression on Farrell’s face says everything we need to know about the hurt he feels at his realization.

And yet, part of the magic in The Banshees of Inisherin is that Colm is not simply a villain. How much can you really hate a guy who loves his dog so much that he dances with him inside his home? The reality is, Colm is in crisis, too. He feels he has wasted much of his life, and wants to devote its remainder to high-minded pursuits (such as composing music of his own on the fiddle). He no longer wants to engage in workaday conversation, smalltalk, or really any conversation that doesn’t reach the level of the sublime. He is capable of finding joy in exactly two places: in music, and with his dog.

For Padriac as well, his animals—particularly Jenny, his miniature donkey—offer him grace. And while Padriac’s sister Siobhan (played by the luminous Kerry Condon) takes issue with Padriac allowing a donkey into the house, we still see Siobhan give Jenny a little pet in the kitchen when Padriac is out of sight. Every major character in The Banshees of Inisherin interacts with animals in a kindly way, and there’s no mistaking the intentionality of this. At one point, McDonagh fixes his camera on a solitary goat against the harsh and beautiful landscape of the island, holding the frame for an extra beat or two, and I’ll be damned if he isn’t trying to tell us something.

One of the questions I believe the film asks is, “are other humans worth our efforts?” Perhaps the kindest of us would be better off with only the animals to keep us company. In the case of Padriac, who loses everyone he cares about over the course of the film, I believe the answer is yes. Padriac would have been better off alone with his cows and his donkey. Humans fail him. Humans leave him. His animals do not.

Yet, as human beings, we still feel the urge to reach out to other people. Of course, there are limitations on the relationship we can have with other animals. W.E. Sebold once wrote, “Men and animals regard each other across a gulf of mutual incomprehension.” But maybe the ability to connect with a non-human animal, despite that mutual incomprehension, is something we undervalue. To connect with a dog, a cat, a horse, a cow, or a donkey takes a level of patience and commitment that, if successful, reaps remarkable rewards. Why do we not value these relationships as much as we value those with humans, when humans so often disappoint?

There is a truly extraordinary scene in Banshees where Colm confesses to the island priest about causing unintentional harm to one of Padriac’s animals.

The priest asks, “Do you think God gives a damn about miniature donkeys, Colm?”

Colm replies, “I fear he doesn’t. And I fear that’s where it’s all gone wrong.”

I gasped aloud when Gleeson completed that line. It’s hard not to think that this earth that some of us are trying to save wouldn’t be better off without us. The idea that our highways will perhaps someday become overgrown with sprouts of greenery and that deer, wolves, and buffalo may one day take up residence in places we used to call cities doesn’t make me feel sad. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Maybe the world needs to be given back to the animals. Lord knows, they couldn’t do worse than we have as stewards of the planet.

Sure, their needs are more simple: food, shelter, and maybe just a touch of love. But I would argue, as I believe Banshees does, that maybe simpler is better.

It’s hard to watch the final scene of Banshees, with Padriac and Colm on the beach, and see Colm thank his rejected friend for looking out for his dog, and not think that our exaltation of ourselves as above the animals is not a conclusion reached through folly. That animals are better friends. And that our need for human interaction is at times a blessing, but far more often a curse.