The Banshees of Inisherin made me rethink male friendship and loss

"I just don’t like you no more." So declared Brendan Gleeson in last year’s BAFTA-winning fable and Irish Civil War allegory, The Banshees of Inisherin. A devastatingly matter-of-fact dismissal, coldly delivered, and one that sent Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell) spiraling into existential crisis. 

It was a sequence of events I recalled as a once-dear friendship of my own fell apart, less than 12 months after I saw the film. I’m lucky enough to have cultivated a wide and diverse group of friends, gathering chums from all avenues of life, from childhood through to university and various dead-end jobs. 

Not a sporty guy, I bonded with the men I’m closest to over a mutual love of film, crude comedy, and, as we mature to a certain age, board-game nights and conversations about grouting. Until recently, I had never experienced the breakdown of a friendship first-hand. 

Sure, I had drifted apart from people I used to be close to (especially as we near middle age and rightfully prioritize families and mortgages). This one, formed and sustained over 15-plus years, was born of a mind-numbing retail job and the beers which followed one particularly crushing day in the office. We bonded as we drew comically veiny dicks on rolls of till paper (how very Superbad) and bitchily gossiped about a mildly terrifying co-worker we dubbed 'the Penguin' (so called for his habit of quacking and leering at women like Danny DeVito in Batman Returns). 

"Did we just become best friends?" we quoted, tongue not entirely in cheek, as we discovered a shared love of zombie movies and Peep Show. It was a friendship that would abide long after we left the job and waved goodbye to our early 20s. As Martin McDonagh’s depiction of a friendship gone sour began with a rejection in the pub, so our own died with a whimper rather than a bang. No heated conversation, no blazing row. 

But even The Banshees of Inisherin had its incident in the end. No lopped-off fingers, no dead donkeys here – ours crumbled with a disappointing absence of drama. It was as though we skipped straight to the beach scene, and that sombre understanding between former friends. 

Things came to a head over one fateful weekend, a sad situation, by then too late to rectify. We had slowly been drifting apart over months and years, quietly becoming different people without taking each other into account. Like many a friendship founded on mutual interests, we always held ours to the standard of that ultimate male ambition – the Drama Free Relationship. Feelings never came into it, although they were certainly there at some point. 

We had always been there for each other in all the ways that mattered (consoling me during my most notable break-up; multiple housewarmings; birthdays, barbecues, and house moves). I had assumed that would always be the case. As Pádraic struggled to comprehend what had gone wrong, so I found myself tormented in the weeks and months that followed. 

My own Colm Doherty hadn’t gone so far as to call me 'dull' (not that this hadn’t crossed my mind), but the cold dissolution of a friendship had been no less devastating nor confusing. Even Pádraic got his explanation – I had only the distinct awareness that one of my dearest friends didn’t like me no more. 

I could push the point: stalk him about the island (or, in this case, Birmingham); set fire to his hut; or force a direct confrontation. But, after so many years of not talking about anything meaningful, male stubbornness and habit wouldn’t allow me to start now. No drama, right to the end. 

"The starting point was to capture the sadness of a break-up, be it a love break-up or a friendship one," McDonagh said of Banshees’ central conflict. "Being on both sides of that is an equally horrible position." And it’s this message that resonated as I mourned. We’d passed the point in the bromance movie where the pals part ways after a painful falling-out: Jay and Simon’s furious separation in the Inbetweeners movie; Dale and Saul storming off in a huff in Pineapple Express. Except, in this case, there was no triumphant reunion or grand gesture. 

I’d like to believe that there’s still a Catalina Wine Mixer on the horizon, but the grim ceasefire between Colm and Pádraic seems more likely. The male friendship may be comforting in its apparent simplicity, but it’s precarious in what goes unspoken. Any relationship takes work, and we had taken ours for granted. A friendship cannot survive on Step Brothers references and dick drawings alone. I should have said it sooner, and now it’s too late. I loved you, man.

The Banshees of Inisherin is available to watch on Disney Plus in the UK and on Hulu in the US. 

Check out our list of the best Disney Plus movies and the best Hulu shows to stream now.