Farrell and McDonagh’s most recent collaboration couldn’t be more different than the first one. In Bruges is an odious movie. Farrell stars as a bigoted moron of an assassin whose sexism, racism, and plenty of other -isms are played for cheap laughs. McDonagh’s fascination with oppressive ideology plays heavily into 2017’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which won lots of awards for its resonant tale about female rage despite how much it sucked on the racism front.
Banshees is McDonagh getting back to his roots. Chris Plante writing for Polygon does a fine job explaining how the filmmaker went from making his worst film to his best by returning to the Irish islands of his playwriting past, when McDonagh’s work centered on “messy men, adored pets, and the ‘I love you so much I could kill ya’ tension of brotherhood.” Farrell seems as though he was born to play Pádraic, a simple, kinda boring guy who takes life day by day and gets his heart broken by his longtime best friend and drinking buddy, the folk musician and violinist, Colm (Gleeson), who’s suddenly decided he won’t fritter away the rest of his life spending countless hours listening to Pádraic talk about what he found in his pony’s shit that day.
While obviously allegorical, and with the small-scale intimacy of a play brought to the screen, the world of Banshees — the tiny fictional island of Inisherin — is so real, so lived in, and so embodied by phenomenal performances by fellow Irish actors Kerry Condon as Siobhán Súilleabháin, Pádraic’s long-suffering, book-loving sister, and Barry Keoghan as Dominic Kearney, a lonely local boy. The relationship between Pádraic and his donkey, Jenny (played by a donkey of the same name), is so sweet, so precious that watching fancams of the two of them can bring me to tears.
Pádraic’s love of his home, his animals, and the very few people in his life — a love that’s corrupted over the course of the film — is beautiful to witness. And you get the sense that Farrell himself is a great big sentimental mush. He hasn’t only cried while watching Ana de Armas in Blonde; he cried on camera in 2021 while discussing LA’s homelessness crisis, cried while watching himself in Banshees, and while talking to Jamie Lee Curtis about the music he listened to while making Banshees.
The promotional cycle for the film has paired Farrell with a number of his fellow actors, and so many of the resulting conversations have been totally delightful. Vanity Fair reunited him with Emma Thompson, his costar for 2013’s Saving Mr. Banks, and it’s clear the two have a similar buoyant, drily funny energy. At one point, Thompson asks Farrell if he’s having good sex at the moment, and he responds, “Oh, God. That’s a different Zoom, darling. Email me.”
After many years of his relationships being tabloid fodder, and after fathering two sons with two different women (who, from interviews, seem to be the pride and joy of his life), Farrell now keeps his love life extremely low profile. The last time he publicly mentioned a girlfriend (without naming her) was on Ellen in 2017. Sleuths determined he was referring to Kelly McNamara, a manager for U2, whom Farrell has been friends with for a long time. It’s unclear whether the two are still together, and I don’t think anyone really cares either way. Farrell’s public image is no longer inextricably tied up with his sex appeal; he’s now the handsome gentleman who helps Jennifer Coolidge up the stairs at the Golden Globes and charms everyone’s pants off with his love — of film and his love for his fellow actors.
Ever since Angelina Jolie’s horrifying abuse allegations against Brad Pitt have made my formerly favorite hunk impossible to root for, I’ve been grateful to Colin Farrell for filling that role in my heart. The guy’s funny, charismatic, handsome as hell, and on the verge of his first Oscar nomination for the role of a lifetime. Let the Colin Farrell era begin. ●
