Banshees: A Friends at War Movie
It is only a slight exaggeration to say that Ireland’s entire film industry seems to be involved in two big movies hitting screens in the next few months.
First, there is the late October release of The Banshees of Inisherin, starring Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell.
Written and directed by Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Seven Psychopaths), Banshees premiered at the Venice film festival back in August and is a reunion of sorts for his funny and frightening 2018 flick In Bruges.
Whereas that tale of two chatty criminals (Gleeson and Farrell) was set in Belgium, Banshees unfolds on a gorgeous Irish island, and revolves around two pals, Padraic and Colm, who don’t seem to be quite as chatty as they once were.
Aside from its top stars, Banshees also features Dubliners, Barry Keoghan (Dunkirk, Black ’47) and David Pearse, as well as Irish show-biz veterans Kerry Condon (Better Call Saul), and Pat Shortt (Father Ted).
And it’s not just the talent that’s Irish in Banshees, as Vanity Fair magazine noted recently in a revealing “first look.”
“The film takes place on the fictional island of Inisherin, and is set in 1923, during the Irish Civil War,” the show biz glossy notes.
“McDonagh draws poignant contrasts between the sounds of gunfire and killings across the water, and of the wars of words (or lack thereof) developing within the island community. We meet Pádraic as an exceedingly kind man whose entire being is rocked after experiencing Colm’s abrupt, casual cruelty.”
Ireland’s “extraordinary natural scenery” also plays a central role in the film.
“I wanted it to be as beautiful as possible,” says McDonagh. “To aim for beauty and for cinema. Because if you heard of a story of two guys grumbling at each other, and you didn’t have that epic kind of beauty, it might get a little tiresome.”
McDonagh doesn’t care if some viewers struggle with the Irish-isms, committing fully “to the characters speaking in dialect authentic to the time and place, fully aware Stateside viewers might not catch every word – but not wanting to compromise his wholly Irish vision,” Vanity Fair notes.
In the end, Banshees may be about history as much as it’s about friendship.
“The Irish Civil War was between two sides who, a year before, were on the same side and fighting the British and the British Empire,” says McDonagh. “The tragedy of that war was that everyone was close friends – and then they were killing each other.”
Liam & Son Team Up
After gazing upon the seaside beauty of Banshees, Irish eyes will then be shifting to another star-studded movie, due out early next year.
The Land of Saints and Sinners stars Kerry Condon, Liam Neeson and Ciaran Hinds. And a dozen or so other Irish actors you’ve seen and heard in movies and TV shows.
In The Land of Saints and Sinners is also set in a remote Irish village – but the gunfire is not relegated to the background. Neeson plays a “retired assassin” drawn back into a life of violence.
Sarah Greene, Jack Gleeson, Colm Meaney, and Bernadette Carty are among the many other Irish actors who will grace the screen in Saints and Sinners.
Until this shoot-em-up flick comes out early next year, the stars have been doing their part to ease the trauma caused by real-life violence.
While filming in Donegal, Neeson and Hinds “visited up to 80 women and children at the Niall Mór Community and Enterprise Centre,” where refugees from the war in Ukraine have settled, according to the Belfast Telegraph.
“The meeting was facilitated by Donegal Local Development CLG (DLDC), a community-led organization which provides a range of services to much of Co Donegal.”
Also, listen up for Neeson – along with his son, Micheál Richardson – in the Disney+ animated Star Wars series Tales of the Jedi, due out in December.
The Wonder Comes to the Big Screen
Niamh Algar, Ciaran Hinds and Brian F. O’Byrne are among the stars of a drama, released on Netflix in September, called The Wonder, based on the Emma Donoghue novel of the same name. This period drama is about an English nurse who ventures deep into Ireland’s midlands to observe – and maybe cure – a young Irish girl who refuses to eat, and yet seems to be doing just fine in terms of her health. The powerful novel by Donoghue – best known for the Academy Award-winning adaptation of her novel Room – raises all sorts of unsettling questions about the Irish, the British, hunger, and faith.
Further down the road, look for The Wonder’s Niamh Algar in a new British medical thriller TV series called Malpractice.
Mothers and Daughters Talking
In December, Killarney native – and BAFTA and Oscar nominee – Jessie Buckley (Wild Rose, The Lost Daughter) joins Irish-American Rooney Mara as well as Claire Foy and Frances McDormand in the chilling psychological thriller, Women Talking.
If the setting – like the title – might seem a little bland, the subject matter is anything but.
The film takes a close look at the mothers and daughters of a devoutly religious Mennonite community. During regular (and secret) meetings, we learn that various women in the community have been drugged and abused by some of the men with whom they share their lives.
Whether or not the women will retaliate, or escape, or simply accept their fates, drives the plot of Women Talking, which is based on the novel of the same name by Miriam Toews.
Women Talking will be directed by Sara Polley, who wrote the 2017 Irish immigrant Netflix series, Alias Grace.
Buckley’s voice talents will also be featured on the streaming giant’s new, animated version of Charles Dickens’ timeless holiday classic, also slated for release in December. Olivia Colman and Luke Evans will join Buckley in Scrooge: A Christmas Carol.
Carey Mulligan… She said
Irish American New York Times journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Megan Twohey – along with colleague Jodi Kantor – broke some of the most important stories of the #MeToo era, especially those related to Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein. A movie based on Twohey’s and Kantor’s book, She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story that Helped Ignite a Movement, is slated for release in November. Carey Mulligan will play Twohey, while Zoe Kazan will portray Kantor. She Said also stars Patricia Clarkson and Samantha Morton.
Niamh Algar, Ciaran Hinds and Brian F. O’Byrne are among the stars of a drama, released on Netflix in September, called The Wonder, based on the Emma Donoghue novel of the same name. This period drama is about an English nurse who ventures deep into Ireland’s midlands to observe – and maybe cure – a young Irish girl who refuses to eat, and yet seems to be doing just fine in terms of her health. The powerful novel by Donoghue – best known for the Academy Award-winning adaptation of her novel Room – raises all sorts of unsettling questions about the Irish, the British, hunger, and faith.
Further down the road, look for The Wonder’s Niamh Algar in a new British medical thriller TV series called Malpractice.
More stories about women and retaliation…
Emerald Fennell set indy Hollywood abuzz with her shocking 2020 film Promising Young Woman, starring fellow Brit Carey Mulligan. Barry Keoghan leads the cast of Fennel’s next project, entitled Saltburn, which also stars Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl), Richard E. Grant (The Rise of Skywalker) and Jacob Elordi (Euphoria). Details about Saltburn are limited right now, though published reports suggest it is set in England and chart a relationship’s descent into obsession.
Keoghan is also slated to appear, alongside fellow Irish actors Anthony Boyle and Fionn O’Shea, in Masters of the Air, a military drama in the tradition of The Pacific and Band of Brothers.
Rumors are also swirling that Keoghan will join Irish writer Ronan Bennet’s crime series Top Boy, older seasons of which can currently be found on Netflix.
Finally, on the lighter side…
Irish artists and actors are collaborating for the new animated series, BI
Chris O’Dowd will lend his vocal talents to this film, which is a product of the
celebrated Irish animation producer Cartoon Saloon, headed by Nora Twomey, Tomm Moore and Paul Young.
My Father’s Dragon is based on Ruth Stiles Gannett’s 1948 children’s novel.
Cartoon Saloon – based in Kilkenny City – is best known for animated work such as The Secret of Kells and The Breadwinner, both of which earned Academy Award nominations. My Father’s Dragon also features voice work from Stranger Things’ Gaten Matarazzo, and Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester.
Until then, you can see Chris O’Dowd himself – not just hear his voice – in Slumberland, alongside Jason Momoa.
Slumberland is another fantasy-adventure story, set to be released later this year, and based on a comic called Little Nemo in Slumberland, about a young girl who is willing to go to great lengths to see her late father.
Murphy as Oppenheimer
Cillian Murphy and Aofie McCardle are at opposite ends of the show biz spectrum – though that might change soon enough.
Murphy just wrapped up the final season of the dark, brilliant crime drama Peaky Blinders, on Netflix, and will be one of the big cinema draws next summer.
Murphy is a star among stars –Kenneth Branagh, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt – in the much-anticipated July 2023 biopic Oppenheimer, to be directed by Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight trilogy, Dunkirk).
But a few years back, Murphy also appeared in a short film by Omagh-born director Aoife McArdle called All of This Unreal Time. McArdle has since gone on to share directing duties with A-lister Ben Stiller on the new Apple TV show Severance, which just earned her an Emmy and Hollywood Critics Association award nomination.
Showtime for McEnroe
When John McEnroe first appeared at the Wimbledon tennis tournament in the late 1970s, it was a culture clash on many levels.
“I had come from (New York) city where punk rock was really shaking things up, and I saw myself as a part of that,” said McEnroe, an eventual Wimbledon champ.
“I was 18 … and I had that punk attitude, which so upset people.”
Not only that, journalist Brian Boyd noted, “The All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, with its colonial-era atmosphere, was looking across the net at the grandson of poor Irish immigrants who had grown up in … the working-class borough of Queens.”
These conflicts – as well as the father-son tension between John and his “perfectionist” Dad – are at the center of a new Showtime documentary simply entitled McEnroe.
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Lindsay’s Irish Wish
The romantic comedy Irish Wish, is slated to start shooting soon. It stars a favorite of the gossip pages, Irish-American Lindsay Lohan, who plays Maddie, jetting off to Ireland to serve as a bridesmaid in her best friend’s wedding.
Shenanigans ensue when Maddie – already upset her friend is marrying a former flame – makes a wish that unexpectedly comes true. Hence the title.
It’s the second of two Linsday Lohan movies Netflix has ordered up. The first, slated to begin streaming this November, is called Falling for Christmas, in which Lohan plays what has been
described as a “newly engaged heiress,” who takes a fall while skiing, bringing on an ill-timed bout of amnesia.
Expect holiday-themed shenanigans.
Blackbird & Black Birds
If you are getting confused about how and where to watch TV and movies these days – or sometimes can’t even tell what’s a series and what’s a feature film – Michael Flatley and Dennis Lehane are not exactly helping things.
After years of rumors, the famous Riverdance star from Chicago, is finally starring in his long-planned movie, called Blackbird.
Meanwhile, the famous Irish-American Boston crime writer behind Mystic River and Gone, Baby, Gone also has a new series out.
It is entitled Black Bird.
Flatley’s flick is a spy thriller that the former dancer also wrote, produced and directed. Critics have not been very kind, however the Guardian newspaper has acknowledged that the film might have a “twist” – and that “some people might actually like it.”
As for Lehane’s Black Bird, it’s a tour through Chicago’s seedy underbelly, starring Taron Egerton (Golden Globe winner for Rocketman) as well as Ray Liotta, in his final role before his untimely passing earlier this year.
The Miracle Club
Irish director Thaddeus O’Sullivan (Ordinary Decent Criminal, Stella Days) is back with a glittering cast that includes Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates and Laura Linney. The film, entitled The
Miracle Club, is about four women from Dublin who decide to make a holy pilgrimage to Lourdes, in France. Along the way, they discover various miracles at the center of their own friendships.
The Miracle Club was shot, in part, at Ardmore Studios in Dublin, and also stars veteran thespian Stephen Rea (The Crying Game, Black ‘47) and up-and-comer Agnes O’Casey.
Take a look at “So Help Me Todd”, premiering this season at 9:00 Thursday evenings on CBS. The series creator/writer, Scott Prendergast, shows us that the Irish creative gene survives in the descendants of immigrants. All 8 of Scott’s great, great grandparents on his father’s side were immigrants from Clare, Galway and Mayo. And on the other side of his family tree, his Scott ancestors were immigrants from Donegal 3 generations before.