Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed rural area in west Ireland, the dramatic film “Bring Them Down” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class.
Culture Clash: Two families get into a violent feud over possession of sheep.
Culture Audience: “Bring Them Down” will appeal mainly to people who fans of the movie’s headliners and well-acted dramas about family feuds.
Christopher Abbott in “Bring Them Down” (Photo by Patrick Redmond/MUBI)
The ending of “Bring Them Down” is a tad underwhelming. However, this drama (about two families feuding over sheep) has good acting and an effective “two sides to every story” narrative. Sensitive viewers be warned: The movie depicts some animal cruelty scenes (staged for the movie), which might be too disturbing for some viewers.
Written and directed by Christopher Andrews, “Bring Them Down” is his feature-film directorial debut. “Bring Them Down” had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. “Bring Them Down” takes place in an unnamed rural area in west Ireland, where the movie was filmed on location.
“Bring Them Down” begins by showing a flashback to 20 years ago, when Michael O’Shea (played by Christopher Abbott) is driving in a car with his mother and his teenage girlfriend Caroline (played by Grace Daly) as passengers. Caroline is in the back seat. Michael’s mother in the front seat. The mother says she’s going to stay with Michael’s aunt Christine. Michael is speeding and won’t slow down.
The movie then abruptly cuts to the next scene: It’s the aftermath of a car accident. Caroline is on the ground, with her face bloodied. She sees something horrifying and screams. Michael drives away. It’s later revealed that Mikey’s speeding caused an accident where Michael’s mother was killed, and Caroline was injured, leaving a permanent scar on Caroline’s face.
The movie then fast-forwards to the present day. Michael is a bachelor with no children and lives on his family’s sheep farm with his widower father Ray (played by Colm Meaney), who is ailing and unable to do the physical work for the farm. Michael is the human does all the work on the farm, with some help from the family sheepdog Mac. The sheep are the family’s only source of income. Michael has branded the family’s sheep by spray painting part of the sheep’s coats with streaks of blue paint.
Caroline (played by Nora-Jane Noone) is now married to a man named Gary Keeley (played by Paul Ready), who has a sheep farm business called Ryan and Sons, which has several employees. Caroline and Gary, who have been having marital problems, have a son in his 20s named Jack (played by Barry Keoghan), who seems to have some learning disabilities and who works with Gary. Considering that adult Caroline doesn’t look much older than Jack, viewers can assume that Caroline gave birth to Jack when Caroline was a teenager.
The rivalry becomes intense between Michael’s small family business and the larger Ryan and Sons. Michael notices that some of his sheep have gone missing. Jack tells Michael that he saw the sheep dead but Jack says he doesn’t know who killed the sheep. Whoever is attacking the sheep are cutting off their legs and leaving them to bleed out and die, says Jack.
Michael asks Jack to show him where these dead sheep are, Jack says that the sheep are now gone. When Michael goes to Ryan and Sons to buy new sheep, Michael sees that his branded sheep are among the flock in the sheep pens. It’s at this moment that Michael knows that Jack lied to Michael. The missing sheep weren’t murdered; they were stolen.
Michael confronts Gary about it and demands to get back his stolen sheep. Gary refuses. A physical fight almost erupts between the two men. Michael is outnumbered by Ryan and Sons employees who back up Gary in this fight. And so, Michael drives off in a huff, without the sheep. He mutters: “Fucking cunt. I’ll kill you.”
Michael has a lot of resentment toward Gary over their rival sheep businesses. But this rivalry is also personal because Gary is married to Michael’s ex-girlfriend Caroline. Early on in the movie, Caroline confides in Michael that she got a job in Cork and is moving there. It’s her way of telling Michael that she’s going to leave Gary. Other scenes in the movie show that Gary has been physically abusing Caroline.
Other characters in “Bring Them Down” are Jack’s troublemaking cousin Lee (played Aaron Heffernan) and a local merchant named Peggy (played by Susan Lynch), who pays for sheep legs. It’s not a mystery that someone from Ryan and Sons would have a motive to kill Michael’s sheep. The mystery is who is actually committing these crimes in such a cruel way? That question is answered in the movie, which also shows the perpetrator perspective.
“Bring Them Down” shows how this family feud escalates into several of Michael’s sheep getting their legs cut off and murdered. Ray demands that Michael get bloody revenge. The movie, which is told in non-chronological order, does a fairly good job of building tension in the story. “Bring Them Down” also shows how this feud is fueled by macho posturing, where the men involved in the fued feel that how they handle their feud is directly tied into their masculinity and self-worth.
Abbott (an American actor who learned Irish Gaelic for this role) gives a simmering performance as a quiet loner who keeps a lot of his feelings bottled up inside, but Michael could be a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. Jack is the other character who gets the most screen time. Keoghan’s performance is memorable but not groundbreaking for him, because Keoghan has made a career out of playing offbeat characters who have mental health issues.
“Bring Them Down” has an expected showdown scene, but it’s not as cathartic as some viewers might think it should be. A lot of the violence in the movie is implied and not explicit, although there are still violent scenes that are fairly graphic. “Bring Them Down” is ultimately a grim observational story about how toxic masculinity is passed down through generations and can result in feuds where there are no real winners.
MUBI released “Bring Them Down” in select U.S. cinemas on February 7, 2025. The MUBI streaming service will premiere the movie on March 28, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1985, with some to the 1950s, in New Ross, Ireland, the dramatic film “Small Things Like These” (based on the novel of the same name) features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A coal delivery driver, who was raised in a convent, has his past come back to haunt him when he discovers dark secrets about the convent.
Culture Audience: “Small Things Like These” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and dramas abut religion having major influences in people’s lives.
Cillian Murphy and Zara Devlin in “Small Things Like These” (Photo by Enda Bowe/Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions)
“Small Things Like These” is a worthy adaptation of the novel of the same name. This meditative drama has slow pacing but many moments of hard-hitting realities about how a convent’s dark secrets affect generations of people in a small Irish community. “Small Things Like These” had its world premiere at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival.
Directed by Tim Mielants and written by Edna Walsh, “Small Things Like These” is adapted from Claire Keegan’s 2020 novel of the same name. It’s an intimate story that speaks to larger issues of abuse in religious institutions that often control or dictate how people live. Although the movie has fictional characters, their experiences are what untold numbers of people have experienced in real life.
“Small Things Like These” takes place primarily in 1985, in the small rural town of New Ross, Ireland. (The movie was filmed in the Irish cities of Wexford, Wicklow and Dublin.) Bill Furlong (played by Cillian Murphy, one of the producers of “Small Things Like These”) is a happily married father of five daughters, ranging from primary school age to high school age. His wife Eileen Furlong (played by Eileen Walsh) is a kind and optimistic homemaker.
Bill works as a coal delivery driver. He is a well-respected member of the community and he’s known as a “regular guy” who lives an unassuming, low-key life. Later, the coal stains that he has to wash off when he comes home from work later become symbolic of the stains of bad memories from hs past that he tries to wash from his psyche.
Bill doesn’t live too far from the Good Shepherd Convent, where he was raised as a child. The Catholic nuns who operate the convent often have teenage girls living there to help them with their work as unpaid employees. The girls who are sent to the convent are considered “wayward” girls who end up at the convent as punishment or simply because the girls have nowhere else to go.
The Catholic Church and this convent are powerfully influential in this community for many reasons, including being the main source of school education. Bill’s eldest daughter Kathleen (played by Liadán Dunlea) has been educated by the convent’s nuns at the local high school. Bill’s other daughters—Joan Furlong (played by Agnes O’Casey), Sheila Furlong (played by Rachel Lynch), Grace Furlong (played by Aoife Gaffney) and Loretta Furlong (played by Faye Brazil)—also plan to attend the same high school.
One day, Bill is outside when he sees a teenage girl named Sarah Redmond (played by Zara Devlin) arrive at the convent with her unnamed mother (played by Sarah Morris), who is practically forcing Sarah into the building. Sarah is fighting and resisting her mother every step of the way and screaming that she doesn’t want to go. Sarah is quickly taken into the building.
Bill sees Sarah again a few days later when he finds her hiding in his shed because she has run away from the convent. Bill doesn’t know what else to do but to return her to the convent, which is under the domineering rule of Sister Mary (played by Emily Watson), the convent’s mother superior, whose calm exterior masks a cruel and abusive personality. Bill can’t help but feel uneasy about Sarah’s obvious desperate unhappiness and unwillingness to live at the convent.
After witnessing these disturbing incidents with Sarah, Bill experiences a flood of memories and emotions about his own mother, whose name was Sarah Furlong (played by Agnes O’Casey), who was an unwed teenager when she had Bill. Sarah is now deceased but there are several flashbacks to when she was a teenager and in a relationship with the teen who was Bill’s biological father Ned (played by Mark McKenna). Bill also has visions of himself (played by Louis Kirwan) when he was about 9 or 10 years old.
Through conversations in the movie and these flashbacks/visions, viewers find out that Bill never knew who his biological father was when Bill was growing up. As a child, he lived for a while with a widow Mrs. Wilson (played by Michelle Fairley), most likely in a foster care situation. Bill’s mother Sarah disappeared or died under mysterious circumstances. There’s a scene where boyhood Bill asks Mrs. Wilson, “Do you think my father knows what happened?” Mrs. Wilson replies, “I don’t know.”
Bill begins to wonder what’s really going on in the convent. A local shop owner named Mrs. Kehoe (played by Helen Behan), who is knowledgeable about some of the town’s secrets, warns Bill not to be an antagonist to the people who operate the convent. “If you go making a nuisance of yourself,” she tells Bill, “you could be denying your children of an education.”
If you’ve seen enough of these types of movies, then you will be easily able to figure out how all these clues and fragmented memories add up to a horrifying truth. Murphy gives an admirably understated performance as someone thinks he’s had an uncomplicated life, but the memories that come flooding back indicate that he has had some past trauma because of his mother being an unwed teen mother in this very religious community.
Watson (who won the Best Supporting Actress Award at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival) gives an unsettling performance as Sister Mary, who is convinced that abuse can be justified in the name of religion. Sister Mary is the worst type of villain: someone who appears to be harmless but in reality causes a great deal of harm.
“Small Things Like These” is true to its title by not being a sweeping epic about people with big personalities getting justice for crimes and other wrongdoings. It’s a story about people who want to live quiet, ordinary lives and might feel overwhelmed by the scope of abuse that they know about or experience. They might not seek justice in the court system but they make a difference through small acts of kindness to people who need it the most.
Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions released “Small Things Like These” in U.S. cinemas on November 8, 2024. The movie was released in Ireland and the United Kingdom on November 1, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in and around Cork, Ireland, the horror film “Oddity” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A psychic medium, who believes she can communicate with dead people, temporarily moves in with her sister’s widower to find out more information about the unsolved murder of her sister.
Culture Audience: “Oddity” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of supernatural horror movies that are also murder mysteries.
Gwilym Lee in “Oddity” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)
The horror film “Oddity” is better at delivering a creepy and foreboding atmosphere than a story that results in genuine surprises. It’s a competently made film about a psychic medium who wants to solve the murder of her sister. The movie isn’t overpopulated with characters, but the characters could have been written better because they often come across as underdeveloped stereotypes.
Written and directed by Damian McCarthy, “Oddity” had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival. The movie takes place in and around the city of Cork, Ireland. “Oddity” (which was filmed in Ireland) has a very uncomplicated plot but it has a somewhat slow start to get to the heart of the mystery.
The beginning of “Oddity” shows a facility were many of the residents have been diagnosed as criminally insane. Dr. Ted Timmins (played by Gwilym Lee) is a psychiatrist at this facility. He is often aided by a orderly named Ivan (played by Steve Wall), who has a gruff and stern personality.
Ted and his wife Dani Timmins (played by Carolyn Bracken) live in a remote rural house that they’ve been renovating. Dani tells Ted that she’s worried about her blind twin sister Darcy Odello (also played by Bracken), who’s supposed to have regular medical checkups. Ted tells Dan that Darcy is capable of taking care of herself.
One day, Dani is home alone when she gets an unexpected visit from a recently released resident of the facility named Olin Boole (played by Tadhg Murphy), who is wild-eyed and disheveled. Olin has been living in a halfway house since his release from the psychiatric facility. At first, Dani doesn’t open the door for Olin but talks to him through a sliding window peephole.
Olin is distressed. He tells Dani, “You’re in trouble.” Olin says that he saw someone go inside the house when Dani’s back was turned. Olin begs Dani to call for help because he doesn’t have a phone. Dani says, “If I open the door, what are you going to do?” Olin replies, “I’ll look around.” Dani then asks, “And if you don’t see anyone?” Declain responds, “I’ll leave.”
Just as Dani starts to open the door, the scene abruptly shifts to showing Olin’s housemate Declan Barrett (played by Jonathan French, also known as Johnny French) at the halfway house. Declan is an artist who likes to draw. He’s in the middle of drawing something when he looks startled.
Declan is hearing strange noises, such as animal-like screeches and heavy grunting. Declan goes in another room and is horrified to see a man’s body with a mutilated head. It’s soon revealed that the dead person is Olin.
What happened in between Dani opening the door for Olin, and then Olin being found murdered? That question is mostly answered by the end of the movie. The timeline jumping in “Oddity” will be confusing to some viewers.
“Oddity” then makes another abrupt shift in the timeline. It’s one year later. That’s when it’s revealed in the movie that Dani is also dead. She was murdered a year ago on the same day that she opened the door to her home to Olin, who is the last known person to have seen her alive. Dani’s murder is never seen or described in graphic detail.
One year after Dani’s murder, Ted is now living at the house with his girlfriend Yana (played by Caroline Menton), whose occupation is never mentioned in the movie. Yana has a generically nice personality. Olin had been the prime suspect in Dani’s murder. However, Olin was never arrested for the murder because he was also killed shortly after Dani was murdered. Both murders have remained unsolved.
A year after the murder, Ted and Yana get a visit from Darcy, who says she wants to use her psychic abilities to find out what Olin was thinking on the day that he was believed to have murdered Dani. “He took my sister’s life,” Darcy says. “I want to know what was going through his mind when he was dying.” Darcy is a little surprised by how quickly widower Ted has moved on to a serious relationship with another woman, but Darcy tries not to be judgmental.
Darcy owns a shop in Cork named Odello’s Oddities, which has a collection of “cursed” items, according to Darcy. Something that Darcy brings with her is a small silver tap bell, which she says is one of the cursed items from her shop. She shows Ted the bell and tells him this story: The bell used to be at a hotel, where an unpleasant bellhop was killed after being shoved down the stairs by a drunk guest. When a hotel receptionist used the bell to summon the new bellhop, the ghost of the dead bellhop appeared instead.
Ted tells Darcy he feels incredibly guilty for allowing Olin be released from the facility: “He should never have been discharged.” Darcy comforts Ted by telling Ted that it wasn’t his fault and that he couldn’t have known that Olin was going to kill Dani. To help Darcy with her psychic medium probe, Ted gives Darcy a handkerchief and tells her what’s in the handkerchief is all that’s left of Olin. Inside the handkerchief is the glass eye that Olin used to wear.
And what about Declan, the person who discovered Olin’s body? Declan died about a week before Darcy arrived. It doesn’t take a genius to see where this is all going, which is why when the answer to the mystery is finally revealed, it’s not surprising at all.
Darcy is invited to stay with Ted and Yana during Darcy’s visit. Darcy has a trunk delivered to the house. And inside the trunk is an ominous, life-sized mannequin, which has the name Wooden Man (played by Ivan de Wergifosse) in the film’s end credits. Wooden Man is Darcy’s constant “companion” who sits at the same table when Darcy has her psychic sessions.
Soon after Darcy arrives, strange things start happening. Yana sees the ghost of Dani in a photo that Yana took a few days before. “Oddity” is very much a “things that go bump in the night” type of movie for many of its jump scares. The sound design for “Oddity” is excellent, even though a great deal of the film somewhat wanders, with mot much plot development beyond showing that the house now seems to be haunted. Is it the ghost of Dani, Olin, or something else?
“Oddity” can maintain viewer interest because of the murder mystery and some of the jump scares. The cast members’ acting is solid, with Bracken giving the obvious standout performance as the eccentric Darcy. Still, there’s so information about the characters in “Oddity” that is left unexplained. As a horror film, “Oddity” has an interesting concept that excels with the movie’s sound and visuals. However, “Oddity” comes up a bit short in developing the movie’s characters and could have made this murder mystery a lot harder to solve.
IFC Films released “Oddity” in U.S. cinemas on July 19, 2024. Shudder will premiere the movie on September 27, 2024.
Pictured from left to right: Olwen Fouéré, Oliver Finnegan, Dakota Fanning and Georgina Campbell in “The Watchers” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
Culture Representation: Taking place in Ireland, the horror film “The Watchers” (based on A.M. Shine’s novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with one black/biracial person) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A 28-year-old American artist, who works in a pet store, gets lost in a wooded area and becomes trapped in a mysterious portal with other people being watched by fearsome creatures.
Culture Audience: “The Watchers” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Dakota Fanning, the novel on which the movie is based, and horror movies that have more style than substance.
Georgina Campbell, Dakota Fanning, Oliver Finnegan and Olwen Fouéré in “The Watchers” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
“The Watchers” succeeds in creating a foreboding atmosphere and some creature feature scares. However, this horror movie’s story (about people trapped and being watched in a forest portal) becomes a nonsensical mess with shoddy film editing. The movie repeatedly contradicts itself in ways that are never explained, thereby ruining the story’s credibility and having scenes that turn out to be fairly useless.
Written and directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan, “The Watchers” is her feature-film directorial debut. The movie is based on A.M. Shine’s 2022 novel “The Watchers.” Ishana Night Shyamalan is the daughter of M. Night Shyamalan, who has written and directed several horror movies that have been hit and miss, in terms of quality. M. Night Shyamalan is also one of the producers of “The Watchers.” Ishana Night Shyamalan was previously a writer and director of some episodes of her father’s Apple TV+ horror series “Servant,” which was on the air from 2019 to 2023.
In “The Watchers,” the main protagonist is a 28-year-old struggling artist named Mina (played by Dakota Fanning), an American living in Galway, Ireland. Mina (a bachelorette who lives alone) has a day job working at a pet store. Early in the movie, a brief glimpse of a sign post shows several missing persons flyers on the sign post. It’s an obvious indication that people have been disappearing with alarming regularity in the Galway area, but the movie’s screenplay is so thinly constructed, no one is seen talking about these disappearances in the movie.
At night, Mina likes to go to pubs and flirt with men, by wearing disguises and making up fake stories about herself. An early scene in the movie shows Mina wearing a black wig, going to a pub, flirting with a young stranger named Collin (played by Shane O’Regan), and lying to him about who she is. Mina pretends that she’s a ballerina named Caroline. This is the most that the movie reveals about what Mina likes to do in her leisure time.
Mina has been tasked with delivering a yellow parrot to a customer. Mina sarcastically tells the parrot, “Try not to die,” which is a sentence that the parrot repeats several times throughout the movie. Mina is driving through a heavily wooded area on her way to deliver this parrot when her SUV suddenly stops working. And because this is a horror movie, her mobile phone can’t get any signals in this remote area. (The woods scenes in “The Watchers” were filmed on location at Ballinastoe Woods in Ireland’s Wicklow County.)
As already shown in the movie’s trailer, Mina gets out to walk and find help. But when she turns around, she sees that her vehicle has suddenly vanished. Feeling stranded and helpless, Mina decides she’s going to name the parrot Darwin, presumably the namesake of Charles Darwin, the scientist credited with the “survival of the fittest” theory of evolution. Mina tells the parrot: “If we’re going to die here, you might as well have a name.”
Faster than you can say “incoherent horror movie,” Mina sees an elderly woman standing at the doorway of a portal. The woman, who later introduces herself as Madeline (played by Olwen Fouéré), shouts to Mina that if Mina wants to live, then Mina has five seconds to run through the door. A terrified Mina runs through the door, which slams shut behind them.
Mina finds out that this door has led to a mysterious house with large glass windows for walls. Madeline introduces her to the other people in the house, which Madeline calls “the coop”: friendly Ciara (played by Georgina Campbell) and rebellious Daniel (played by Oliver Finnegan), who both say that they have been in this house for an undetermined period of time. Madeline has been in the coop the longest.
Madeline explains to Mina that every night, people in the coop are watched by creatures for the creatures’ amusement. The people in the coop are not allowed to see the creatures. When the creatures come out at night, the glass walls and windows turn into mirrors from the inside, so that anyone inside the coop can only see their reflections instead of outside the house.
Madeline then explains that there are other rules besides not being able to look at the creatures. People inside the coop cannot try to escape and cannot leave the house at night. If they leave the house during the day (they have to hunt for their own food), they can’t be in the sunlight, they have to be back in the coop by sunset, and they can’t go near “the burrows,” which are really holes or caves. Anyone who breaks these rules will be killed by the creatures, says Madeline.
The first half of “The Watchers” drags with repetition, as Mina and Daniel break the rules and try to find ways to escape. As already revealed in the trailer for “The Watchers,” Ciara is married, and her husband John (played by Alistair Brammer) is somewhere in the woods. John is seen running frantically through the woods at night during the movie’s opening scene.
“The Watchers” has a lot of character actions that don’t make much sense. Mina doesn’t really ask a lot of questions when she’s trapped with these three strangers. Madeline, who used to be a university professor who taught history, seems to know a lot of the “rules” and is very bossy about them, thereby making it obvious that she knows more than she’s saying. Ciara barely mentions her missing husband John until he apparently comes knocking on the front door.
Mina has a past trauma that is haunting her: Her mother died when Mina was 13 years old. Mina and her identical twin sister Lucy witnessed this death. Mina has been estranged from Lucy ever since. What happened to the sisters’ mother is shown in a flashback, which explains why Lucy refuses Mina’s attempts to reconnect with Lucy. However, this part of Mina’s past is somewhat mishandled in “The Watchers,” considering what happens at the end of the movie. (The origins and secrets of these “watcher” creatures are eventually revealed.)
“The Watchers” has some mild jump scares that slightly improve when the creatures are fully seen, after the movie repeatedly teases what these creatures look like. The movie’s cinematography by Eli Arenson is intentionally dark and murky for most of the film. After a while, all of this drab darkness seems like a smokescreen for a weak story. A professor character named Rory Kilmartin (played by John Lynch) is introduced in a very jumbled and rushed turn of events in the last third of the film, when Mina suddenly becomes a paranormal detective in ways that never look believable.
None of the acting in “The Watchers” is anything special. The movie spends a lot of time with the four residents of the coop, but Ciara and Daniel remain underdeveloped characters. Fanning’s Mina is supposed to be emotionally disconnected, but it results in a very dull performance. “The Watchers” has an effective music score (from Abel Korzeniowski) that helps create some suspenseful tension. However, having the right style in creating a mood cannot make up for the hollow characters and the story’s lack of cohesion in “The Watchers,” which has a very substandard ending.
Warner Bros. Pictures will release “The Watchers” in U.S. cinemas on June 7, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Ireland, the dramatic film “Aisha” features a racially diverse cast of characters (black, white and a few Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A young Nigerian woman seeks asylum in Ireland and experiences various immigration problems around the same time that she and an Irish man develop a friendship.
Culture Audience: “Aisha” will appeal primarily to fans of the movie’s headliners and low-key dramas that have realistic portrayals of immigration issues in Ireland.
Letitia Wright and Josh O’Connor in “Aisha” (Photo courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films)
“Aisha” is a well-acted drama that authentically depicts the quiet desperation and loneliness that refugees can experience. Letitia Wright and Josh O’Connor give poignant performances as two people who form a tender friendship amid immigration uncertainty. Wright portrays a Nigerian immigrant seeking asylum in Ireland, while O’Connor portrays the native Irishman who befriends her. Thankfully, “Aisha” doesn’t devolve into cringeworthy cliches that most narrative films usually have when they cover the complicated and sensitive subject matter of refugee immigration.
Written and directed by Frank Berry, “Aisha” had its world premiere at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival and was released later that year in Ireland and the United Kingdom. The movie takes place in unnamed cities in Ireland, where “Aisha” was filmed on location. The story’s timeline shows a few months in the life of Aisha Osagie (played by Wright), who has been living in Ireland for a little more than a year when the story begins.
Aisha, who is in her late 20s, does not have any family members with her in Ireland, where the International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS) handles refugee cases. She has applied for permanent residency and is waiting for an interview with IPAS officials to determine if her application is approved or denied. In the meantime, Aisha lives with other immigrants in an accommodation center, where she has been assigned by IPAS.
She has a compassionate immigration attorney named Peter Flood (played by Lorcan Cranitch), who has meetings with Aisha to advise her and discuss their case strategy. Aisha doesn’t want anyone’s pity, and she doesn’t want to live off of charity handouts. She wants to be a hard-working, law-abiding resident who can start a new and safe life in Ireland.
Aisha’s story isn’t revealed immediately but is told in various conversations that she has with people. Aisha is alone in Ireland because her father and brother were killed in a home invasion by a group of men who are her father’s debtors. He borrowed money from these men so that Aisha could go to a university in Nigeria. She studied geography and regional planning at the university but had to drop out, presumably because of what happened to her family.
Aisha’s widowed mother Moraya Osagie (played by Rosemary Aimiyekagbon) can’t afford to leave Nigeria. In Ireland, Aisha works part-time as an assistant at a beauty salon and sends some of her salary money back to her mother. A few scenes in the movie show Aisha talking with her mother by video calls. Aisha and Moraya have a very good mother/daughter relationship, but Aisha doesn’t tell her mother certain things if she thinks this information will upset Moraya.
Aisha is a quiet loner who is friendly but doesn’t get too close to the people she meets. However, Aisha has developed a bond with the three people who share a room with her: a young mother named Habiba Momoh (played by Antionette Doyle); Habiba’s son Abdul Momoh (played by Emmanuel Hassan); and Habiba’s daughter Ruykaya Momoh (played by Florence Adebambo). The movie doesn’t show how Aisha got to know this family, but they are also from Africa, and are the closest that Aisha has to family members in Ireland.
A company called Embankment Security works for IPAS in doing inspections at IPAS accommodation centers. A newly hired Embankment Security guard named Conor Healy (played by O’Connor), who’s about the same age as Aisha, first sees her when he and some colleagues are at the accommodation center where she lives. The Embankment Security guards later come back with garda (Irish police), under orders to take away Habiba, Abdul and Ruykaya, who get deported to the United Kingdom.
This separation is understandably very upsetting to Aisha and witnessed by Conor, who is helpless to do anything about it. Aisha is usually quiet, but she also has a very assertive side to her. When the Momoh family is being taken away, Aisha says that the family has a right to call IPAS, but the accommodation center manager Brendan Close (played Denis Conway) doesn’t want to to hear this truth and treats Aisha like a she’s a rebellious pest. Brendan hints that he could make life miserable for Aisha if she continues to question him.
Brendan and Aisha clash during another incident where she stands up to his tyrannical style of managing. One day at the accommodation center, Aisha asks a kitchen worker to heat up a small container of homemade halal in the kitchen’s microwave. Brendan is nearby and strictly forbids it because he says that Aisha and other accommodation center residents can only eat the food provided by the accommodation center.
Aisha and Brendan have a short-lived argument about it. She eventually has to do what Brendan says. Conor witnesses this verbal conflict. When Conor is alone with Aisha, he tells her to meet him later at the kitchen so that she can use the microwave oven for the food she wants to have. It’s the start of a friendship that is tentative at first but grows stronger as the story goes on.
Just like Aisha, Conor is quiet and a little withdrawn. However, he and Aisha eventually open up to each other about certain things in their lives. Conor also has a troubled past: He says he was in prison for six years for drug-related crimes. Conor also tells Aisha that his addictions are cocaine, meth and alcohol, but he has been clean and sober for the past three years.
Conor is currently living with his mother and is taking information technology classes, with the eventual goal to go to college. Nothing is revealed about Conor’s love life, but Aisha eventually tells Conor that she is separated from a husband who abandoned her shortly after the wedding in Nigeria. Aisha is not in contact with her estranged husband, and she doesn’t know where he is.
Conor is obviously attracted to Aisha, and she might feel the same way. But it should come as no surprise that Aisha is reluctant to get romantically involved with someone when she doesn’t know if she will be allowed to stay in Ireland. Aisha tells Conor that up front, but Conor is persistent and shows he wants to be a loyal friend who will be there for Aisha, no matter what happens.
Given these circumstances, a stereotypical movie would morph into an “against all odds” romantic courtship that overshadows the very stressful and life-changing matter of Aisha’s immigration issues. A stereotypical movie would also have Conor be some type of “savior” character. However, “Aisha” does not go down a typical route that movies like this usually take. For example, Conor is not in the movie as much as some viewers might think he will be.
“Aisha” never strikes a false note in showing not only the obstacles that refugees face in seeking asylum but also how authority figures can use or abuse their power in ways that can massively affect refugees. Wright and O’Connor give touching performances that go beyond the immigration issues because Aisha and Conor are both two lonely people who find a connection with each other during a time in their lives when they least expect it. “Aisha” has many moments of bleakness but it also offers hope that people at the lowest points of their lives can find other people who care and can make a positive difference.
Samuel Goldwyn Films released “Aisha” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on May 10, 2024. The movie was released in Ireland and the United Kingdom in November 2022.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Ireland, the comedy/drama film “Joyride” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: An unhappy 12-year-old boy, who runs away from home by stealing a taxi, finds out that a miserable mother with a newborn child is in the back of the taxi, and these unlikely travel partners go on a road trip together.
Culture Audience: “Joyride” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of star Olivia Colman and are interested in sappy and unrealistic dramedies.
Lochlann Ó Mearáin in “Joyride” (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)
The comedy/drama “Joyride” is more like a train wreck. It’s phony schmaltz that doesn’t deserve the great talent of Olivia Colman. Among the many cringeworthy moments is a low point when a 12-year-old boy teaches a first-time middle-aged mother how to breastfeed her baby. The movie is filled with idiotic dialogue and blatant attempts to manipulate viewers’ emotions in a very hackneyed way. It’s no wonder that Oscar-winning actress Colman distanced herself from this embarrassing flop by doing little to no promotion for it.
Directed by Emer Reynolds and written by Ailbhe Keogan, “Joyride” takes place in unnamed parts of Ireland. The movie was actually filmed in Kerry County, Ireland. The beginning of the movie shows a 12-year-old boy named Mully (played by Charlie Reid) is at a pub called The Greyhound, where he is on stage singing Cab Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher.” He’s performing for the crowd because this event is a fundraiser for his deceased and beloved mother Rita Mulligan, who recently passed away of an unnamed illness.
Mully has a dishonest and selfish father named James (played by Lochlann Ó Mearáin), who is raising Mully and Mully’s baby sister, who doesn’t have a name in the movie. James has quickly moved on to a new girlfriend named Imelda, who is living in the household too. At this fundraising event, Mully notices that his father is already taking the cash out of the donation container. Mully tells James to stop, but James ignores him.
James abruptly tells Mully, “What’s for her is for us. She’d want us to have it. You, me, your sister the baby. It’s not cheap having a new one in the house.” Viewers later find out that James is in debt to some local thugs, so the money probably won’t be going to his family. As a consolation, James gives Mully a €50 bill. Mully refuses it and instead grabs the wad of cash from James and runs out into the street.
At that same moment, a taxi driver named Paddy (played by Seán O’Connor) is in the street and has temporarily stepped out of his taxi to load some luggage from a passenger. But the only thing that Mully sees is a taxi with an open door and no one inside. Mully impulsively gets in the taxi and drives away. James runs after Mully and will continue to try to find Mully, not so much because he’s concerned about his son’s safety, but mainly because James wants the money that Mully took.
It isn’t long before Mully finds out that there are two people who’ve been sleeping in the back seat of the car: an attorney named Joy (played by Colman) and her newborn daughter Robin. Joy is startled out of her sleep and finds out that a runaway boy is driving the taxi. Joy doesn’t do the right thing and get out of the car that’s being illegally driven by a child, because there would be no “Joyride” movie if an attorney like Robin acted like a responsible adult. Instead, Robin makes a deal with Mully: She won’t turn him in to authorities if Mully drives her to the airport.
As so begins a tedious and ridiculous road trip, where Mully and Joy steal more cars, to throw the authorities and Mully’s father James off of their track. Predictably, there are many distractions and detours on the way to the airport, along with plenty of bickering from this unlikely pair getting to know each other. Mully doesn’t do all of the driving. Joy does some of the driving in places where there might be garda check points or other places where a 12-year-old boy driving a car would be easily noticed.
Joy wants to go to the airport because she’s taking a trip to the home where she plans to give up Robin for adoption. At first Joy won’t tell Mully who is adopting Robin, but eventually Joy reveals that a younger relative of Joy’s named Mags (played by Aisling O’Sullivan) has agreed to take the baby, because Joy doesn’t want to raise this child. Joy explains that the pregnancy was unplanned, the baby’s father is someone Joy barely knows, and Joy was surprised that she got pregnant at her age.
Mully is puzzled over why Joy would want to give up her child for someone else to raise. Joy get defensive and goes on this rant: “Because I don’t like kids, and Mags does! People give away babies all the time—to Romanian orphanages, to child trafficker, to Chinese gymnastics academies. I’m giving mine to a loving home. Stone me.”
Joy adds, “Look, more women should take my lead, instead of dragging up kids they never wanted. They should be selfless enough to give them away to women who eat, sleep and dream babies. There’s enough of them out there.”
The problem with this fake feminist speech in “Joyride” is that the movie is filled with numerous scenarios where Joy has to be taught how to be a decent human being by a 12-year-old boy. The movie’s messaging is obvious: “Look at what happens when a boy who wants a mother unexpectedly finds a woman who doesn’t want her child. The boy has more emotional intelligence than this bitter woman, so he’s going to teach her some life lessons about opening her heart.”
Not surprisingly, Joy has a backstory that’s supposed to explain why she’s rude and prickly to almost everyone she meets. Yes, it’s another “blame it on the childhood” movie, where there are flashbacks to Joy’s negative childhood experiences with a cruel mother who appears to be mentally ill. Kate Brick plays a young Joy in these flashbacks.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the performances in the movie, although Colman looks like she regrets every minute that she signed up for this treacly mess. The major problems are with the screenplay and direction of “Joyride,” which wants to give a misguided sitcom treatment to some heavy issues. By the time the movie comes to its predictable and very corny end, viewers will feel like this “Joyride” was nothing but a trip to time-wasting absurdity.
Magnolia Pictures released “Joyride” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on December 23, 2022. The movie was released in Ireland and the United Kingdom on July 29, 2022.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1981, in unnamed rural parts of Ireland, the dramatic film “The Quiet Girl” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class.
Culture Clash: A shy and introverted 9-year-old girl is sent to live with a married couple who are distant relatives for a summer, and she finds out a tragic family secret.
Culture Audience: “The Quiet Girl” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in watching low-key but emotionally touching family dramas.
Catherine Clinch and Carrie Crowley in “The Quiet Girl” (Photo courtesy of Super LTD)
The very accurately titled “The Quiet Girl” is a meditative drama about how an introverted Irish girl spends a life-changing summer away from her troubled home and learns some poignant lessons about grief and family love. This is not a movie that is going to please viewers expecting to see more high-stakes dramatics or emotional meltdowns in the story. It’s a more of reflection of the quiet ways that people evolve or affected by life events.
Written and directed by Colm Bairéad, “The Quiet Girl” is based on Claire Keegan’s 2010 novella “Foster.” For the first two-thirds of the movie, there isn’t much of a plot, but the credible acting by the principal cast members can hold viewers’ interest until the movie’s last third, which is really the emotional heart of the story. “The Quiet Girl” had its world premiere at the 2022 Berlin International Film Festival, where the movie won the a Crystal Bear prize from the Generation Kplus International Jury for Best Film. The movie was also nominated for Best International Feature Film for the 2023 Academy Awards.
In the beginning of “The Quiet Girl,” which takes place in 1981, in unnamed parts of rural Ireland, viewers see that the movie’s title character is 9-year-old Cáit (played by Catherine Clinch) is shy, introverted and mostly neglected in her large, dysfunctional family. (“The Quiet Girl” was filmed in Dublin and County Meath, Ireland.) Her father Dan (played by Michael Patric) is an irresponsible alcoholic who often spends his money on alcohol instead of paying certain people he needs to pay (such as a hay deliverer) to keep the family farm running smoothly.
Dan also cheats on his wife and has the audacity to pick up one of his girlfriends for a secretive tryst while Cáit is in the back seat of the car. Her father comment to this mistress about Cáit: “She’s the wanderer.” Cáit’s mother (played by Kate Nic Chonaonaigh), who doesn’t have a name in the move is preoccupied with helping run the farm and taking care of the growing family. Cáit has three older sisters, and their mother is pregnant again.
At school, Cáit is a social outcast who gets called a “weirdo” by some other girls. At home, Cáit is quiet at the dining table, while her sisters are talkative and mostly ignore Cáit. Sometimes, Cáit hides underneath her bed, as if she’s too timid to face the world. She’s such an introvert, she often seems to be invisible to the people around her. The movie has several scenes where Cáit is in the same room when people talk about Cáit as if she isn’t there.
One day, Cáit is told to get in the car with her father, who drives her far away to the farm home of his distant older cousin Eibhlín Cinnsealach (played by Carrie Crowley) and Eibhlín’s husband Seán Cinnsealach (played by Andrew Bennett), who live on the farm by themselves. It’s the first time that Cáit has met these two relatives. Dan tells Cáit that she’s going to live with Eibhlín and Seán for the summer, maybe longer, but definitely until after Cáit’s mother gives birth. This move comes without any advance notice to Cáit, who is dropped off at Eibhlín and Seán’s home with only the clothes that she’s wearing.
Dan stays for a meal, but then he leaves without seeming to care about any confusion that Cáit must be feeling. Cáit doesn’t know why she was singled out among her siblings to be sent away to live in another household, and her parents don’t tell her why. However, the movie drops some big hints. It’s shown that Cáit is sometimes a bedwetter, which irritates her mother, who has to do the cleaning. Her parents also want to temporarily ease some of the financial burden of taking care of so many kids, by sending away the child who is least likely to protest this move.
Eibhlín is immediately kind and compassionate to Cáit, while Seán is cold and distant to Cáit at first. The pacing of “The Quiet Girl” tends to get sluggish when the movie becomes a series of scenes showing Eibhlín teaching Cáit how to do domestic chores inside the house. Eventually, Seán warms up a little to Cáit, and he shows her how to do domestic chores outside the house.
However, Seán seems to be bothered by Cáit is wearing boys’ clothes when she’s not doing the outdoor chores with him. The boys’ clothes are the only children’s clothes that the couple had in the house when Dan dropped off Cáit to live with the Eibhlín and Seán. Later, Seán starts to feel more comfortable around Cáit after she begins to wear girls’ clothes that Eibhlín buys for her.
Not long after Cáit begins living there, she tells Eibhlín that she overheard Cáit’s mother say that Cáit can live with Eibhlín and Seán as long as Cáit wants. Cáit asks Eibhlín if it’s true. Eibhlín doesn’t directly answer the question. Her response is simply to compare her household to Cáit ‘s household: “There are no secrets in this house. There’s shame in that house.”
Later, when Cáit tells Eibhlín that Cáit’s father didn’t have the money to pay the hay man, Eibhlín asks Cáit if it would offend her parents if Eibhlín gave money to Cáit’s parents. Cáit says it wouldn’t bother her mother, but it would upset her father. The matter is then dropped, but it’s another indication that Cáit was left at this home for financial reasons, because she would be one less mouth to feed. When Cáit is asleep, Eibhlín goes into the room and whispers, “If you were mine, I’d never leave you in a house of strangers.”
Eibhlín and Seán keep mostly to themselves, so Cáit lives a fairly isolated existence with them. Cáit has little to no interaction with children of her own age. However, she gets certain things from this household that she doesn’t have in her parents’ household: kindness, attention and stability, beginning with Eibhlín, and later from Seán. Clinch, Crowley and Bennett give nuanced and effective performances as this trio of people who form a new family unit.
One day, a local elderly villager named Gearóid (played by Martin Oakes) dies. He was well-liked by Eibhlín and Seán, so they bring Cáit with them to the wake. A spiteful gossip named Úna (played by Joan Sheehy) is also at the wake. Eibhlín is polite to Úna but also seems a little wary of her. Úna plays a pivotal role in the story when she spends some time alone with Cáit during the wake.
“The Quiet Girl” is a movie about people who live simple lives on the surface but have complicated interior lives that they are reluctant to show other people. It’s a poignant story about a girl who discovers that the life she is forced to live with her parents isn’t necessarily the life that she deserves. “The Quiet Girl” is the opposite of a flashy movie with oversized personalities, because it takes a contemplative look at how perspectives can drastically change from life’s more subtle moments.
Super LTD released “The Quiet Girl” in select U.S. cinemas for a limited engagement on December 16, 2022, and then re-released the movie in select U.S. cinemas on February 24, 2023. “The Quiet Girl” was released in Ireland on May 13, 2022.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1862 in the Midlands of Ireland, the dramatic film “The Wonder” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A Nightingale nurse from England is hired to go to Ireland to find out the reason why an 11-year-old girl has reportedly been able to survive for four months without eating and without any signs of starvation.
Culture Audience: “The Wonder” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Florence Pugh and movies that make pointed observations about how religion can control and influence people’s lives.
Josie Walker, Toby Jones, Kíla Lord Cassidy, Niamh Algar and Florence Pugh in “The Wonder” (Photo by Aidan Monaghan/Netflix)
“The Wonder” will test the patience of viewers with short attention spans, but the movie’s subtlety, nuances and Florence Pugh’s standout performance are great rewards for people who want to see a drama about religion and moral hypocrisy. This is the type of movie where some of the biggest revelations don’t happen in loud, bombastic moments but occur in hushed tones and whispers that are sometimes engulfed in shame.
Directed by Sebastián Lelio, “The Wonder” is based on Emma Donoghue’s 2016 novel of the same name. Lelio, Donoghue and Alice Birch co-wrote the adapted screenplay for “The Wonder.” Although the movie is set in a rural Irish community in 1862, many of the themes in “The Wonder” transcend time and location and can apply to the past, present and future of any community where religion is the driving force of how people live. “The Wonder” had its world premiere at the 2022 Telluride Film Festival, and then had its Canadian premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.
The beginning of “The Wonder” has an unusual location of a movie set of props where no one is present, but viewers can hear this voiceover saying: “This is the beginning of a film called ‘The Wonder.’ The people you are about to meet, the characters believe in their stories with complete devotion.” The camera then moves from the prop-filled set to a movie-set replication of the inside of train, as the story begins and transports viewers back to the year 1862.
On the train is the central protagonist of “The Wonder”: Lib Wright (played by Pugh), a Nightingale nurse from England, who is traveling by herself to the Midlands of Ireland. A devoutly Catholic community (which is unnamed in the movie) has hired Lib to watch over an 11-year-old girl named Anna O’Donnell (played by Kíla Lord Cassidy), who has been in the news for being a “miracle girl.” Anna has reportedly not eaten for the past four months and has no signs of starvation or any weight loss.
Lib is a compassionate and strong-willed nurse who is very skeptical that Anna hasn’t eaten any food for the past four months. When she arrives at the boarding house where she’ll be staying, she finds out that she has to share a room with a nun named Sister Michael (played by Josie Walker), who will be sharing the work shift duties of watching over Anna. When Lib expresses some disappointment that she will have to share a room with a nun, instead of having her own room, the boarding house’s matriarch Mrs. Maggie Ryan (played by Ruth Bradley) quips, “Welcome to Ireland.”
In her first meal at the Ryan family home, Lib is polite, observant and somewhat guarded about herself. The Ryan family consists of Maggie; her husband, Sean Ryan (played by David Wilmot), who works as a publican; and their five daughters (played by Darcey Campion, Abigail Coburn, Carla Hurley O’Dwyer, Juliette Hurley O’Dwyer and Carly Kane). Maggie tells Anna that the eldest four daughters are Sean’s daughters from his marriage to his first wife, who is now deceased. The youngest daughter is the biological child of Sean and Maggie.
Sean is on a five-man committee overseeing Lib and Sister Michael in the women’s job of observing Anna. The other men on the committee are Dr. McBrearty (played by Toby Jones), Father Thaddeus (played by Ciarán Hinds), landowner John Flynn (played by Brian F. O’Byrne), and Baronet Sir Ottway (played by Dermot Crowley). Dr. McBrearty is the most outspoken of the five men and is the one who’s most likely to give orders. It should come as no surprise that independent-minded Lib will clash with Dr. McBrearty the most.
In Lib’s first meeting in front of the committee, she is adamantly told that her job is to observe and talk to Anna and do nothing else. Lib is not allowed to give Anna any food, water or medical attention. Lib is concerned and uncomfortable with this command, but Dr. McBrearty reminds Lib that she’s being paid a considerable amount of money to do whatever the committee tells her to do. Lib is told that after 15 days, Lib and Sister Michael will be required to give separate testimonial reports about what they each believe is the cause of Anna’s seemingly miraculous condition.
When Lib meets the O’Donnell family, she finds a deeply religious clan who’s emotionally haunted by the death of Anna’s older brother Pat, who passed away nine months earlier. A recent photo of Pat in the family home shows that he was about 15 years old. Pat’s cause of death is never fully explained, but it’s described in the movie as being a sudden death.
Anna’s parents Rosaleen O’Donnell (played by Elaine Cassidy) and Malachy O’Donnell (played by Caolán Byrne) appear to be humble and unassuming. Rosaleen is very devoted and nurturing to Anna, whom Rosaleen calls “a jewel, a wonder.” However, Lib can’t help but notice that Anna’s parents accept money from people who want to see this “miracle girl” up close. Lib thinks this practice is distasteful, and she sometimes sends these visitors away because Lib is more concerened about Anna’s health.
The O’Donnells have a housekeeper named Kitty (played by Niamh Algar), who is in her 20s, and who has recently started learning how to read. Kitty might not have a lot of formal education, but she is very knowledgeable about her surroundings and the people in the community. Kitty is usually the one to tell Lib some of the personal backgrounds of the people in the community. In other words, Kitty knows a lot more than people think she does.
As for Anna, she’s a mostly quiet child who will answer any questions about her condition by saying that it’s all coming from God. When Lib asks Anna how she’s been able to not have any physical effects of not eating, Anna insists that she’s getting “manna from heaven.” Lib asks, “How does it feel?” Anna replies, “Full.” That’s not a good-enough answer for Lib, who is very doubtful that Anna has not eaten anything for the past four months. Lib is determined to find out why.
Someone else who wants to get to the bottom of this mystery is Will Byrne (played by Tom Burke), a reporter for the Daily Telegraph in England. Will is visiting this community to investigate, so it’s inevitable that Lib meets Will. Kitty tells Lib that Will grew up in the community but moved to England for his university education and to pursue a career in journalism. According to Kitty, Will’s parents were so heartbroken that he left Ireland and didn’t keep in touch with them, so his parents locked themselves in their home and starved themselves to death during the Great Famine.
The Great Famine, which devastated Ireland from 1845 to 1849, resulted in about 100,000 people dying from starvation and disease, stemming from blighted potato crops that also caused an economic crisis. The village where the O’Donnells live was hit hard by the Great Famine, which is why Anna’s seemingly miraculous starvation survival has a particularly emotional resonance in this religious community. The voiceover in the beginning of the movie comments: “The Great Famine casts a long shadow, and the Irish hold the English responsible for all that devastation.”
It doesn’t take long for Lib to become frustrated by her employers’ orders not to help Anna in any way. One night, when she’s off-duty and hanging out at Sean’s pub, she angrily asks him: “What kind of backwards village imports a professional nurse for something like this?” Sean responds with equal ire and says to Lib, “Prove it’s nonsense, and then fuck off [and go] home.”
There’s some underlying tension between the Irish villagers and anyone they consider to be an “outsider,” especially those from England. Will, who has now made England his home, experiences a certain amount of mistrust from the villagers too, because Will is considered somewhat of a “traitor” to abandon his Irish home to move to England. At first, Will and Lib seem to be in hostile competition to find out what’s going on with Anna, but Lib and Will eventually discover that they actually like each other, and they bond over their “outsider” status in this village.
And who exactly is Lib? She slowly reveals information about herself to certain people. Viewers find out that she served in the Crimean War. After the war, she was married to a man who disappeared and is presumed dead. And she is in deep emotional pain over the death of her baby daughter, who passed away at three weeks old. Lib later confides in Anna that Lib’s husband left Lib shortly after the death of their child.
When Lib is alone in her room, she takes out a towel that has a pair of baby booties and some liquid opium. She has a secret self-harming ritual of getting high by drinking the opium and pricking an index finger until she sees blood. She then sucks the blood so that no stains appear anywhere. When Anna shows Lib a bloody tooth that has fallen out of Anna’s mouth, Lib wonders if Anna is also engaging in self-harm.
Observant viewers will notice that it’s mentioned early on in the movie that Anna has stopped eating since her 11th birthday. “The Wonder” has recurring themes and references to being reborn and people going through different transitions of life and death. Certain people in the story are obsessed with who is going to heaven or hell and who might be stuck in purgatory.
Lib, whose birth name is Elizabeth, is asked by Anna if she likes to call herself by any other names, such as Elizabeth, Beth or Liz. Later, after Lib reveals something about herself, Lib will ask Anna if she could be another person, what her name would be. Anna says she would choose the name Nan.
“The Wonder” often reflects the slow pace of a rural village, so this movie might be too sluggish for some viewers. However, the performances of the cast members are admirable, while the mystery of Anna’s condition can keep viewers curious enough to find out what will happen next and how the movie will end. Pugh is a solid anchor for “The Wonder,” which is not a movie that has her flashiest, awards-bait role, but it’s testament to how talented she is that her portrayals of various characters seem so natural.
Even though Pugh performs the role of Lib in an authentic way, others part of the “The Wonder” have a few authenticity flaws and disappointments. For example, this community is ruled by the teachings of the Catholic Church, but “The Wonder” inexplicably does not show enough of Father Thaddeus’ influence on this community. Father Thaddeus is a mostly silent member of the committee that is supervising Lib and Sister Michael. It’s an unfortunate waste of the talent of Oscar-nominated actor Hinds.
Lib also does something very dangerous toward the end of “The Wonder.” And how it’s staged in the movie looks rushed and somewhat hard to believe. The movie doesn’t deviate from the book in what happens, but the cinematic version of this conclusion seems crammed quickly into a movie that took its time to linger on other less meaningful parts of the story. These flaws are minor and don’t ruin “The Wonder,” which is a distinctive psychological drama that effectively portrays the conflicts that can occur between comforts of religious faith and the discomforts of harsh reality.
Netflix released “The Wonder” in select U.S. cinemas on November 2, 2022. The movie premiered on Netflix on November 16, 2022.
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed rural village in Ireland, the dramatic film “God’s Creatures” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class.
Culture Clash: A woman who manages her family’s oyster farm has to decide how loyal she wants to be to her son after he’s accused of raping one of her employees, and she tells a lie to create an alibi for him.
Culture Audience: “God’s Creatures” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of star Emily Watson and well-acted movies about moral dilemmas.
Aisling Franciosi in “God’s Creatures” (Photo courtesy of A24)
Despite its slow pacing, “God’s Creatures” is a very effective psychological drama that brings up ethical questions about family loyalty and dealing with sexual assault. Emily Watson gives an emotionally stirring performance as a conflicted mother who has to reckon with her own responsibility in possibly covering up a serious crime. It’s a movie that shows why denial can be just as toxic as a criminal act.
Directed by Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer, “God’s Creatures” (written by Shane Crowley) was filmed on location in County Donegal, Ireland. It’s here, in an unnamed fishing village, that Aileen O’Hara (played by Watson) thinks she’s living an uncomplicated life that revolves around her work and her family. Aileen has been happily married to her husband Con (played by Declan Conlon) for about 35 years. Together, they own an oyster farm, where Aileen works as a manager of the oyster processing plant. Con mainly supervises the oyster fishermen.
Aileen and Con have two children: Erin O’Sullivan (played by Toni O’Rourke) and Brian O’Hara (played by Paul Mescal), who are opposites in many ways. Erin, who has lived in the village her entire life, is in her 30s and is a single mother to an infant son. Brian, who is in his mid-to-late 20s, is a freewheeling bachelor with no children. For the past seven years, Brian lived in Australia and had stopped contacting his family. Near the beginning of the movie, Brian suddenly shows up in the village and expects to pick up right where he left off before he moved away to Australia.
The father of Erin’s baby is not in Erin’s life and won’t be involved in raising the child. Erin knows that many people in the community are religious and politically conservative. And therefore, she’s aware that being a single mother who is not widowed carries a certain stigma. Based on the fact that Erin has a different last name from her parents, it’s implied that she’s divorced. It’s not clear if her ex-husband is the father of her child or not, but Erin has told her family that the father of her child didn’t even know she was pregnant and therefore doesn’t know the child exists.
Brian is a prodigal son who was known as a troublemaker before he moved away to Australia. He is welcomed back with open arms by Aileen, who is very happy to see him. Con and Erin are much more wary and skeptical of Brian’s sudden reappearance. It’s open to interpretation why Brian suddenly wanted to move back to this small village. Was he running home to his family or running away from something?
Brian won’t really say why he suddenly decided to move back to his hometown without giving his family any advance notice. His family doesn’t press the issue, and he lives in Aileen and Con’s home. Brian is also quickly given a job as a fisherman in the family business. Although the O’Hara family is responsible for employing about 40 to 50 people in the village, the family lives modestly but is aware that the family has a certain amount of power in this community.
Con’s elderly father Paddy O’Hara (played by Lalor Roddy) also lives on the family property. Paddy, who is mute and might have dementia, passed on the family’s oyster business to Con, who promised Paddy that he would keep the business going. In his current mental state, Paddy is mostly unresponsive when people try to talk to him.
However, when Brian comes back to live in the family home, Paddy seems to light up when he’s around Brian. Brian is attentive to Paddy and helps take care of him like a dutiful and compassionate grandson. At one point, Brian is able to coax Paddy out of Paddy’s muteness, by getting Paddy to sing out loud.
It becomes obvious early on in the story that Aileen favors Brian over Erin. Brian has a very charismatic side to him where he shows that he can be outgoing and charming. He’s a “mama’s boy” who knows that Aileen is more likely than Con to forgive or overlook Brian’s flaws and misdeeds. As far as Aileen is concerned, whatever wrongdoings that Brian committed in the past, they should stay in the past. Aileen thinks Brian deserves a chance to prove that he’s turned his life around.
The opening scene of “God’s Creatures” is a subtle indication of how this village is rooted in traditions and superstitions. A fisherman named Mark Fitz, who worked for the O’Hara family, has been found dead in the sea, and his body has been taken out of the water. He drowned because he didn’t know how to swim. His mother Mary Fitz (played by Marion O’Dwyer) works in the processing plant. This drowning happened before Brian came back to the village to live.
The villagers traditionally don’t want their fishermen to know how to swim, so that if one of them is drowning, other people won’t be responsible for jumping in the water to save the drowning person. No one really questions this tradition, which is an indication that people in the community are willing to sacrifice others for a “survival of the fittest” mentality. As an example of Erin’s willingness to be a nonconformist in this tight-knit village, she tells her family that she’s going to teach her son how to swim.
One of Erin’s closest friends is Sarah Murphy (played by Aisling Franciosi), who works at the O’Hara family’s oyster processing plant. Like many people in the village, Sarah has lived there her entire life. Sarah, who is closer in age to Brian than she is to Erin, is a former schoolmate of Brian’s. She is trapped in an unhappy and abusive marriage to Francie D’Arcy (played by Brendan McCormack), who is very controlling and often accuses her of being unfaithful to him. Sarah having a different last name from her husband is an indication that she has an independent streak.
Sarah confides in Erin that due to her arguments with Francie, “I’ve been back in my parents’ house for a couple of nights. Time puts it all into perspective very quickly. He was brutal with his words. Still, though, he’s just like anyone else, though. We’re all God’s creatures in the dark.”
One night, Brian is hanging out at a local pub owned by a man named Dan Nell (played by Enda Oates), who is also the chief bartender. Sarah is there too, and Brian strikes up a flirtatious conversation with her. “I can’t believe you’re still here, to be honest,” Brian tells Sarah. “I thought you’d long abandon this place.”
Sarah replies, “Everything I need was here. I didn’t have to go looking for it.” Brian says, “Likewise.” This statement from Brian seems to be not very honest, since he obviously was looking for something somewhere else, by living in Australia for years and deliberately not contacting his family.
Brian then begins to reminisce about the good times that he and Sarah used to have when they were teenagers. Sarah curtly says about this reminsicing, “I wouldn’t get too hung up on it if I were you.” It’s implied that Brian has been attracted to Sarah for years. And now that he knows she’s in a troubled marriage, he wants to know if he has a chance with her. However, Sarah quickly shuts down this possibility.
About one week after this encounter, the O’Hara family business gets some bad news: Fungus has been found in some of the harvested oysters, so the fishing operations are temporarily halted. Around the same time, Sarah has been acting strangely on the job. On day, she faints near one of the conveyor belts, and when Aileen goes over to help her, Sarah says to her in a hostile manner: “Don’t touch me!”
Aileen will soon find out why Sarah is acting this way. One night, a garda named Mike (played by Andrew Bennett) visits the O’Hara family home to tell Aileen that a woman (whose name he won’t disclose) has accused Brian of raping her the week before. Brian has denied it and says that on the night in question of the alleged rape, he was at home all night, and Aileen can vouch for him. Mike asks Aileen if Brian’s alibi is true, and Aileen automatically says yes.
However, later when Aileen confronts Brian about where he was that night, he admits he was out in Dan Nell’s pub, where his accuser says that they were at, but that he had no sexual contact with her. Brian vigorously tells Aileen that he didn’t sexually assault anyone. It isn’t long before Aileen finds out that Sarah is Brian’s accuser.
Aileen believes Brian, so she feels resentment toward Sarah and thinks that Sarah is trying to ruin Brian’s life. Sarah feels resentment toward Aileen, because she thinks that Aileen is willfully covering up for Brian. Meanwhile, Erin is inclined to believe Sarah and doesn’t like it that Aileen refuses to hear Sarah’s side of the story. Needless to say, the tension builds when an investigation yields a result that is bound to make one side very unhappy.
“God’s Creatures” is a “slow burn” story where the last third of the movie is the best part. As soon as Aileen finds out that Brian doesn’t have an alibi for the period of time that he was accused of raping Sarah, the seeds of doubt have been planted in Aileen’s mind, but she tries to repress this doubt at all costs. Erin, who always felt like Aileen unfairly favored Brian over Erin, becomes increasingly infuriated with Aileen for what Erin thinks is misguided parental protection. Con stays out of this family conflict by not taking either side.
Meanwhile, Brian gets the support from many people in the community who think of him as a reformed “good guy,” and they want the rape accusation to go away. As for Sarah, coming forward with this rape allegation has made life much worse for her at her home and at work. She gets bullied and shamed by certain members of the community who think that she’s lying.
“God’s Creatures” is a scathing and often-melancholy rumination of how society often deals with sexual assault—a crime that is typically very hard to prove because there are usually only two witnesses: the accuser and the accused. If the accused admits to having sexual contact with the accuser, the accused usually says that this sexual contact was consensual. Sarah is blamed by some people for waiting a week to come forward with her accusation. It’s a common reaction from people who don’t know or don’t care that when an accuser chooses to comes forward is not proof of an accuser’s honesty or dishonesty about the allegation.
Watson gives a very nuanced performance as Aileen, who thinks of herself as a moral and upstanding person, but Aileen starts to question what kind of person she is the more she begins to doubt that Brian is telling the truth. Mescal probably has the hardest role to play, since the Brian character is supposed to keep viewers guessing up to a certain point if he’s a “good guy” or not. Franciosi has some standout moments in her role as Sarah, who finds out quickly that her entire reputation can change once she’s labeled a rape accuser.
The rape accusation causes a rift in the O’Hara family, as Erin makes it clear that she’s on Sarah’s side. However, the movie also shows how the accusation affects the entire community, not just the O’Hara family and Sarah. “God’s Creatures” is a depiction of how society can be complicit in enabling harm. And in this community, where the attitude is “survival of the fittest,” justice and peace often can’t be found in a court of law.
A24 released “God’s Creatures” in select U.S. cinemas on September 30, 2022.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1923, on the fictional Irish island of Inisherin, the comedy/drama film “The Banshees of Inisherin” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class.
Culture Clash: Two men who have been best friends—a farmer in his 40s and a musician in his 60s—have their emotional stability tested when the musician abruptly ends the friendship and goes to extreme lengths to get his former friend to stop communicating with him.
Culture Audience: “The Banshees of Inisherin” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson; filmmaker Martin McDonagh; and movies that make darkly comedic and emotionally incisive commentaries about the highs and lows of human nature.
Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan in “The Banshees of Inisherin” (Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures)
“The Banshees of Inisherin” offers a bittersweet exploration of the heartbreak, loneliness, hope, and bizarre unpredictability of life with two estranged friends in a rural Irish town. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson give magnetic performances as two former friends who want very different things in existing together in this small, tight-knit and gossipy community. This comedy/drama movie reunites Farrell, Gleeson, and writer/director Martin McDonagh, who previously worked together on the 2008 assassin dramedy “In Bruges,” a very different movie from “The Banshees of Inisherin.”
McDonagh should be given a lot of credit for not wanting to copy “In Bruges” in this reteaming with the dynamic duo of Farrell and Gleeson, who played bickering hit men in the movie, which was set in Bruges, Belgium, in late 2000s. “In Bruges” had a madcap energy and some wacky plot developments that bordered on the absurd. “The Banshees of Inisherin” is often bleak, dreary and carries the emotional weight of characters wallowing in personal despair, but not having the words or resources to cope well with their personal problems. “The Banshees of Inisherin” had its world premiere at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival, where Farrell won the award for Best Actor, and McDonagh won the prize for Best Screenplay.
Set in 1925 on the fictional island of Inisherin (off of the coast of Ireland), “The Banshees of Inisherin” shows how the unraveling of a friendship spirals out of control into madness and tragedy. The movie is about more than some of the outlandish things that happen during the course of the story. It’s also about the mundanity of being stuck and stifled by a life of drudgery and limited options. It’s also about the need for people to feel loved and accepted by those whom they love and accept.
Viewers never get to see how the friendship developed between longtime Inisherin residents Pádraic Súilleabháin (played by Farrell) and Colm Doherty (played by Gleeson), because “The Banshees of Inisherin” begins on the day that Pádraic finds out that Colm not only wants to end the friendship, but Colm also wants Pádraic to stop communicating with him. Pádraic is a farmer in his 40s. Colm is a musician in his 60s. Both are bachelors with no children. Up until their estrangement, they were constant companions.
It’s unknown if Colm ever got married, but it’s made clear that Pádraic has never been married and is generally inexperienced and uninterested about a lot of things outside of Inisherin and his farm life. The movie doesn’t go into details about their sexualities or their love lives, but it’s implied that Colm and Pádraic have an older brother/younger brother type of relationship.
Somehow, their friendship became the center of their social lives. Colm lives alone, while Pádraic lives with his sister Siobhan Súilleabháin (played by Kerry Condon), who is a never-married bachelorette in her 40s with no children. Siobhan and Colm are the most important people in Pádraic’s life. Pádraic and Siobhan, whose parents died seven years earlier, are the only Súilleabháin family members who live on the island of Inisherin.
Pádraic and Colm each has a beloved pet that plays a pivotal role in the story. Padraic’s favorite animal on the farm is a miniature donkey named Jenny, whom he treats like a child. (Jenny has some adorable animal scenes in the movie.) Pádraic and Siobhan sometimes argue because Pádraic wants to let Jenny stay in their house, while Siobhan refuses and insists that Jenny stay in the area where the rest of the farm animals are kept. Colm’s only pet is his devoted male Border Collie named Sammy, who is Colm’s only constant companion in the story.
Pádraic is an uncomplicated person who places a high value on honesty and being nice to other people. He is the type of person who will say exactly what he’s thinking, even if it comes out in a way that might be awkward or not very tactful. Colm is much more complicated and someone who doesn’t always say what he’s thinking. Viewers will soon see that Colm has a dark side and how disturbed that dark side can be.
The unnamed rural town where Colm and Pádraic live has a very small population, so everyone in the community seems to know each other. (“The Banshees of Inisherin” was actually filmed in Inishmore and Achill Island in Ireland.) It’s the type of working-class town where no one can afford to have a car, so the usual form of vehicle transportation is a wheel cart.
The opening scene shows Pádraic walking to Colm’s house to meet him for their usual 2 p.m. visit to the local pub, which is called J.J. Devine Public House. Pádraic peeks in the front window and sees that Colm is sitting on a chair, smoking a cigarette, and looking lost in his thoughts. Pádraic taps on the window and calls out Colm’s name loud enough for Colm to hear, but Colm acts like he doesn’t hear anything and stares straight ahead.
Pádraic assumes that his friend will join him in the pub later, so he goes to the pub by himself. When Pádraic arrives, the pub’s owner/bartender Jonjo Devine (played by Pat Shortt) immediately asks Pádraic where Colm is, because Jonjo is so accustomed to seeing Pádraic and Colm together. “Are you rowing [arguing]?” Jonjo asks Pádraic, who says no. Pádraic tells Jonjo about Colm’s strange non-reaction when Pádraic went to visit him.
Colm is a no-show for their usual pub meet-up. A confused Pádraic goes home and tells Siobhan, who asks the same question: “Are you rowing?” Pádraic says no, and he’s not aware of anything that could’ve happened that would cause Colm to avoid him. Pádraic later goes back to the pub, where he sees Colm acting friendly and in good spirits with Jonjo and some of the customers.
When Colm sees Pádraic, the smile leaves Colm’s face, and Colm looks like he’s just seen someone whom he dislikes immensely. Pádraic, who is completely baffled, approaches Colm and asks him what’s going on and why Colm is acting this way. Pádraic also says that he’s sorry if he did anything to offend Colm. And that’s when Colm bluntly tells Pádraic that he doesn’t want to be Pádraic’s friend anymore because Colm thinks Pádraic is too dull and he’s become completely bored with their friendship. Colm also says that he doesn’t want Pádraic to talk to him anymore.
Colm, who is a fiddler, goes on to say that he’s getting old and wants to write great musical pieces before he dies. He cruelly tells Pádraic that Pádraic just drains time and energy from Colm, who wants to put that time and energy into writing music. Colm tells Pádraic that he’s “trying not to listen to the dull things you have to say.” Colm adds that he “has time not for aimless chatting but normal chatting.”
As an example of something that Pádraic does that Colm says is annoying, Colm mentions a recent conversation where Pádraic talked to Colm for two hours about the things he found in the feces of Pádraic’s donkey. Pádraic corrects Colm and said that the conversation about feces was actually about a pony, not a donkey. It’s an example of some of the dark comedy in this movie.
Pádraic is in shock and denial over this abrupt end to this friendship. The next day, he wakes up and sees on his calender that the day that Colm told him that their friendship was over also happened to be April Fool’s Day. Pádraic goes back to the pub and talks to Colm again, because he thinks that the conversation they had the night before was all a big April Fool’s Day joke. But to Pádraic’s dismay, Colm tells him in no uncertain terms that it’s not a joke.
And then, Colm makes this ominous threat: If Pádraic communicates with Colm again, Colm will cut off one of Colm’s own fingers every time it happens. It’s a threat that several people in the pub hear. And since this is a small town, word quickly spreads in the community about the alarming way that Colm wants to keep Pádraic out of Colm’s life.
Pádraic is naturally very distressed by this turn of events. He turns to Siobhan for emotional support, and she has to constantly deny it when Pádraic asks her if he’s dimwitted and dull. “You’re nice!” she finally yells in frustration. “Move on!” But Pádraic can’t move on. He’s still mystified over why Colm no longer wants to be his friend, and he wants them to be friends again.
Pádraic and Siobhan eventually come to the conclusion that Colm might be depressed. However, Pádraic being Pádraic, his nature is to want to be the one to help lift Colm out of Colm’s apparent depression. And the only way Pádraic knows how to do that is to talk to Colm.
While Pádraic is still reeling from being rejected by his best friend, a local guy in his 20s named Dominic Kearney (played by Barry Keoghan) has been tagging along with Pádraic very chance that he can get. Dominic, who appears to have learning disabilities, is a social outcast in this community. Padraic is the person in the community who is the kindest to Dominic. Just like Pádraic looks up to Colm like an older brother, Dominic seems to have a similar admiration for Pádraic.
Dominic also wants to spend a lot of time with Pádraic because Dominic comes from a very abusive home. It’s revealed fairly early on in the movie that Dominic’s widowed, alcoholic father Peadar Kearney (played by Gary Lydon) physically and emotionally abuses Dominic. The abuse goes beyond beatings and includes sexual abuse.
Peader happens to be the only police officer that this very small town has, so he gets away with these crimes. Peader also dislikes Pádraic and Siobhan, for past reasons that aren’t fully explained. However, it probably has a lot to do with the fact that Pádraic knows all about the abuse, and Dominic seems to want to be a part of the Súilleabháin more than Dominic wants to be part of his own family. The animosity between Peader and Pádraic increases when Peader and Colm start to become friendlier with each other after Colm ends his friendship with Pádraic.
Meanwhile, Dominic has a crush on Siobhan, but because he’s socially awkward, he doesn’t quite know how to express his feelings. Pádraic is too absorbed with trying to mend his friendship with Colm, so Pádraic doesn’t notice the significance of why Dominic asks him about Siobhan’s dating history and what kind of men Siobhan tends to like. Pádraic isn’t very helpful and gives vague answers. Just like her brother, Siobhan doesn’t have an active love life.
One evening, Dominic is invited over for dinner at Pádraic and Siobhan’s home. When Dominic asks Siobhan why she’s never been married, she gets angry and offended and tells him that it’s none of his business. She’s so insulted by this question, Siobhan tells Dominic to leave. Siobhan also doesn’t pick up on Dominic’s infatuation with her, so she doesn’t understand that Dominic asked that question as a way to flirt with her.
Some other characters in the movie have supporting roles as people who know a lot of the personal business of the people in this community. Mrs. McCormick (played by Sheila Flitton), an elderly woman who is an occasional visitor to the Súilleabháin home, looks and acts like someone who knows a lot of community secrets. Mrs. Reardon (played by Bríd Ní Neachtain), a middle-aged woman who runs the local convenience store/post office, is a very nosy gossip and doesn’t hestitate to open other people’s mail, in order to snoop. And then there’s the obligatory Catholic priest (played by David Pearse), a man in his late 20s or early 30s, who doesn’t have a name in the movie, but he hears people’s confessions.
The personal turmoil between Pádraic and Colm escalates when Pádraic just can’t accept that Colm wants Pádraic to leave Colm alone. Pádraic’s desperation is also affected when Siobhan gets a job offer to work at a library on the mainland of Ireland. The movie shows whether or not she takes that offer. It’s also shown if Colm follows through on his threat to cut off any of his own fingers after Pádraic continues to contact Colm.
“The Banshees of Inisherin” is not a big, flashy movie with elaborate scenes of drama. It’s a movie that authentically shows the quiet desperation that people feel but they suppress, in order not to be labeled as unstable, troublemakers or whiners. Pádraic shows a lot of emotional vulnerability that makes some members of the community more uncomfortable than Colm’s declaration of violent self-harm. It’s the movie’s way of showing how unnecessary violence is often more accepted in society as a way to cope with problems, rather than expressing emotional vulnerability.
Of course, in a movie about former friends who end up feuding with each other, there are some showdown scenes that are among the best in the movie. However, there are scenes where Pádraic or Colm is alone in a room, and those scenes are just as powerful. Farrell and Gleason handle their respective characters with a level of authenticity that resonates, even when some unhinged things start to happen. Condon and Keoghan are also quite good in their roles, although the characters of Siobhan and Dominic are ultimately overshadowed by what goes on between Pádraic and Colm.
McDonagh’s movies and plays often show human nature at its worst and its best. His movies and plays also depict aspects of life that can be depressing or joyful. It’s a dichotomous balance that isn’t easy to achieve, but McDonagh’s sharp talent in writing and directing, as well as his ability to make great decisions with a top-notch cast, result in “The Banshees of Inisherin” being a sometimes uncomfortable but definitely a memorable and emotionally moving ride.
Searchlight Pictures released “The Banshees of Inisherin” in select U.S. cinemas on October 21, 2022. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on December 13, 2022, and on Blu-ray and DVD on December 20, 2022.
