On a small island off the west coast or Ireland in 1923, Pádraic (Colin Farrell) meets his best friend Colm (Brendan Gleeson) for their regular drink to be told that he doesn't like him any more, without any further explanation. This sends Pádraic into a spin as he tries to find out what he has done to be shunned out of the blue, and then Colm takes increasingly draconian actions to emphasise the point that he wants nothing more to do with him.
On one level, this is a dark comedy, with wry, aphoristic asides crossing over into existential observations. Then there's also the backdrop of the Irish Civil War on the mainland, and the fact that Inisherin means 'the island of Ireland' leaves us in no doubt that the sudden rift between the two men is meant to mirror that in the country as a whole. But this isn't hammered home: like so much else in this nuanced and multi-faceted film, from the local priest doubling as the village shrink and the confining nature of living in an incestuously small community where everyone knows what everyone else is doing, to posterity and the purpose of life itself, it's just another layer that is left up to the viewer to engage with or bypass. The twin leads, reunited by the director for the first time since 2008's In Bruges, play off each other unforcedly and convincingly, and thereby create a small, unpretentious gem of a whole. It deserved every one of the many accolades that it garnered.
8/10
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