A friend­ship ends with sev­ered fin­gers in The Ban­shees of Inisherin’s first trailer

Though 2017 feels like sev­er­al life­times ago, movie devo­tees may recall that Mar­tin McDon­agh​‘s last film — Three Bill­boards Out­side Ebbing, Mis­souri — drew a mixed recep­tion, each crit­i­cal lash­ing paired with anoth­er heap of awards nom­i­na­tions. But for his long-await­ed return to fea­ture direct­ing, McDonagh’s going back to Ire­land and back to basics, erring toward the acidic ban­ter of In Bruges for his lat­est seri­o­com­ic por­trait of stunt­ed masculinity.

The first trail­er for The Ban­shees of Inish­erin came online this morn­ing, and teased an odd premise: one day, seem­ing­ly out of nowhere, a man cuts off ties with his best friend. Pádra­ic (Col­in Far­rell) and Colm (Bren­dan Glee­son) have been dai­ly-hang bud­dies for decades, but some­thing in Pádraic’s end­less dron­ing about the con­tent of his pony’s drop­pings has final­ly bro­ken his reluc­tant audi­ence, who’s had enough.

Colm draws a line, and his pal’s refusal to accept the sud­den dis­so­lu­tion of his life’s most mean­ing­ful inter­per­son­al rela­tion­ship forces Colm to grow more extreme in his estab­lish­ment of bound­aries, ulti­mate­ly threat­en­ing to cut off a fin­ger every time Pádra­ic tries to force him back into con­ver­sa­tion. The con­fused, upset Pádra­ic seeks coun­sel from his sis­ter Siob­hán (Ker­ry Con­don) and local youth Dominic (Bar­ry Keoghan, try­ing a bit of com­e­dy on for size), but only sinks deep­er into depres­sion over his inex­plic­a­ble lon­er status.

McDon­agh once again rips open the divide between melan­choly and lev­i­ty, show­ing the minia­ture absur­di­ties in the lives of dis­con­tent­ed, search­ing peo­ple. And that still leaves the ques­tion of what Colm’s not say­ing, the expla­na­tion that his friend needs to hear before he can ful­ly move on and leave the man alone. The writer-direc­tor-play­wright is blessed with the gift of gab like few else, and he’s posed a clever chal­lenge for him­self by mak­ing a movie about some­one who just wants all the talk­ing to stop.

Upcom­ing pre­mieres at Venice and Toron­to will make this film a fix­ture of the fall fes­ti­val sea­son, and if the dis­trib­u­tors at Search­light Pic­tures have their druthers, awards sea­son as well. Between this, God’s Crea­tures, and Enys Men, it’s shap­ing up to be a strong year for descen­dants of the Celtic peoples.

The Ban­shees of Inish­erin comes to cin­e­mas in the US on 21 Octo­ber. A date for the UK has yet to be set.