The Banshees of Inisherin, written and directed by Martin McDonagh

Movies are created about the everyday and the universal but rarely the banal, simply because movies need to be entertaining. The Banshees of Inisherin accomplishes both: it manages to be entertaining by way of tackling the banality of our lives and showing us the heartbreak in it. “So, we’ll keep aimlessly chatting and me life’ll keep dwindling,” says Colm, the fiddler who no longer wishes to be friends with Pádraic. To which Pádraic, set on keeping his friendship, responds, “I said, ‘Not aimless chatting.’ I said, ‘Good, normal chatting.’” This neatly addresses the movie’s themes of niceness, friendship, and meaning in life in only two sentences. With our friends, our family, our community, and even within ourselves, we repeat the same motions, the same conversations, the same necessary banalities of life. To Pádraic’s point, when you are with the correct people, every day things are no longer boring, no matter how repetitive.

But to Colm’s perspective, what is the point of this chatting if it’s aimless, if it’s not actually saying anything? At the heart of the movie is the silence which permeates each character–they talk to one another, but never say anything of meaning. No one wishes to speak with Mrs. McCormick and most actively avoid her. Everyone knows that the local cop beats his son Dominic, but no one can say anything; when Pádraic does bring it to the open it only brings worse consequences. Pádraic won’t open up to his sister Siobhán but bemoans that Colm won’t open up to him, and needs to ask the local Father to inquire into Colm’s mental health. The central tension of the story is that bodily mutilation will follow if Pádraic even speaks to Colm, so much so that the characters and the audience are begging him to keep his mouth shut.  

If you’re catching onto the names, you’ll notice the gender dynamics happening here as well: these men are lonely and cannot speak with one another. The only women are Mrs. McCormick, an elderly and eerie townswoman, and Siobhán, who stands apart from the island due to her gender and interest in books. Colm tells her, “It’s about one boring man leaving another man alone, that’s all,” to which Siobhán snaps, “One boring man! You’re all fecking boring!” The only way she can survive the isle is by leaving; the mens’ method of survival is often silent or violent–and by the end, deadly. In Irish legend the banshee is a female spirit who warns of an impending death, and you’ll definitely see her in this film. But this movie is about banshees, plural, and it is the men who are screaming. 

– Peyton

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Every century or so, you consume something that switches up the brain chemistry a little bit. This month, I finally finished Gideon the Ninth, which Close Read readers might be familiar with from a past recommendation by Peyton Austin. And in fear of being redundant, when it comes to the question of what I want to talk about and scream from the rooftops . . . it’s Gideon all the way. This book captivated me and subsequently ripped my heart to shreds. 

Gideon the Ninth is a murder mystery, science-fiction/fantasy story about necromancers in search of answers to the secrets of ultimate power. The titular character is someone that I absolutely fell in love with, and I truly didn’t expect to. Her crass humor and “jock” persona was not something I instantly clicked with (though I did find it very entertaining), but as the story goes on, she reveals herself to be a woman of honor and loyalty. Watching her fumble around, not quite “getting” anything that’s happening, yet developing a deep care for the well-being of those around her, grounded the story so much for me. I felt exactly like her: I was also fumbling around, not understanding anything. (Who cares about Lyctorhood? I don’t even know what that is!) I’d be remiss to not mention her relationship with Harrowhark. The way that Muir paralleled Gideon’s journey of discovering the intricacies of a necromancer-cavalier relationship with Gideon’s own relationship with her necromancer was so rewarding. 

I highly recommend this book. I think that the number of characters and their difficult to pronounce names might appear daunting at first; it certainly was for me. However, Muir’s construction of each of these characters is distinct, and as Gideon meets each one and develops her own relationships with them, the reader is also pulled deeper into their world and the twists and turns that come with it. I loved Gideon the Ninth and the mysteries it unveiled. Going through it with Gideon was so much fun (and so much pain!), even when it felt like both of us together were almost perpetually one step behind.

-Elise