Colin Farrell’s new film, The Banshees of Inisherin, received a 13-minute standing ovation at its premiere.
The Irish actor appears in Martin McDonagh’s film, which premiered out of Venice Film Festival on Monday (5 September), alongside Brendan Gleeson, Barry Keoghan, and Kerry Condon.
According to Variety, McDonagh, Farrell, Gleeson, and Condon were met with the “longest and loudest reception” of any film that premiered at the festival this season.
It was speculated that this might have been in response to Farrell “who broke with tradition by wading into the crowd to take selfies with fans and sign autographs, which only made the cheering grow louder and more sustained”.
The Banshees of Inisherin is directed by Oscar winner McDonagh, who is behind films such as 2008’s In Bruges, which also stars Farrell and Gleeson, 2017’s Three Billboards Outside Missouri, and 2012’s Seven Psychopaths.
The film is described as a black comedy-drama that follows Farrell and Gleeson playing Pàdraic Súilleabháin and Colm Doherty, respectively.
Conflict between the two friends arises when one of them abruptly ends their friendship, with alarming consequences for both of them.
Writing for The Guardian, film critic Peter Bradshaw described The Banshees of Inisherin as a “macabre black comedy of male pride and wounded male feelings, a shaggy-dog story of wretchedness and a dance of death between aggression and self-harm, set on an imaginary island called Inisherin off the Irish coast”.
Commending Farrell’s performance, a critic for Empire wrote in their four-star review: “Farrell is fantastic in the role, delivering one of his best-ever performances. He takes on a kind of sagging anti-charisma, a seeming guilelessness which he initially plays for laughs, but then gradually and convincingly brews into something much darker.”
The Banshees of Inisherin will screen at Toronto International Film Festival this week, after which it is slated for a theatrical release on 21 October.
