The Banshees Of Inisherin Review: 9 Ups & 1 Down

6. The Story Is Fascinatingly Unpredictable

No spoilers here, but the movie's marketing has done a splendid job of not giving much away beyond the premise's early setup - that Pádraic wishes to repair his friendship with Colm as Colm makes increasingly drastic steps to ensure that doesn't happen.

And once the terms have been laid out, McDonagh steers the story in a number of wildly unexpected directions, especially later on, which also prove massively dramatically satisfying.

It would've been easy for a filmmaker to coast on ambiguity all the way to the finish line, but McDonagh dares to heighten and elevate the stakes with several surprising twists and turns that only make this movie more tenaciously compelling.