The Banshees of Inisherin
If you have ever felt the overwhelming urge to tie cinderblocks around your ankles and jump into the ocean when forced to endure long bouts of small talk (notice the emphasis, please) about how so and sos cat died the other day, or about how the man down the street always gets his paper in the morning, only to throw it away on the way back to the door (how strange, oh my!), or about how Mrs. L has six corns on her toe, or any of the other ways one might say a lot and yet express absolutely nothing at all of note in a world wherein all things capable of meaningful expression will one day die, never to exist again, then The Banshees of Inisherin will resonate.
A musician with an intellectual bent and hopes of grandeur on a remote island community off the coast of Ireland one day decides that he has not the time anymore to listen to his longtime friend, a bit of a dud, babble on about nothing, and he swears him off without warning. After relentless effort on the part of his friend to rekindle the relationship, the musician promises to chop off one finger for every time he is bothered by the man again. It does not end well. The movie will seem absurd, its protaganist hopelessly insane, to one who does not mind wasting his time with talk of corns and neighbors. To the rest of us, chopping off a finger to ward off pointless conversation may even seem mild.
One finds himself sympathetic to both characters, of course. Indeed, the musician’s hopes of grandeur often register as delusional, and the dud, a man deserving of a friend. And the extreme nature of my own thoughts of sinking to the bottom of the ocean — the quiet, the calm! — has often led me to wonder whether my derision is justified, or whether it may in the end lead to loneliness
In the end, though, one would do well to fall somewhere in between, to have a few friends with whom he shares intellectual interests, but not so many as to burden himself with responsibilities that prevent him from going his own way when he pleases or so needs, to be kind to family and those with whom he must associate in his day-to-day, whatever their capacity, but to politely draw lines in the sand.
