Boy Movies #5

Colin Farrell is a girl

You’re reading Boy Movies, which is officially entering its second month in publication, if you can even believe it. Today we’re talking about In Bruges at the request of friend of the newsletter Claire and in honor of Martin McDonagh’s latest boy movie The Banshees of Inisherin, which I recently wept over in a crowded theater while thinking about my dead cat. If you have a suggestion for a future issue, don’t hesitate to reach out. Consider subscribing and telling a friend as well, because we at HQ have made the firm decision to only accept requests from subscribers. I will never apologize for being a woman with a head for business.

I’ve always loved movies about friend breakups. I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that I’ve experienced a number of them over the years and representation is so important. But also, friend breakup stories are historically for and about women (think Frances Ha, Bridesmaids, the entirety of HBO’s Girls), often kicking into motion after a girl has a big reaction to her friend getting into a serious romantic relationship. She feels abandoned, and so she spirals, and I see myself in her, because friend breakups are as severe and heartbreaking as any other breakup. Boys can break up too, of course, but it’s trickier.

I don’t know what men call their friend breakups — dude divorces, bro breaches? — but I do know that when boys break up, they make it everyone’s problem. Boy friend breakups are spawned from betrayal and they end in mass chaos and/or death (think Casino, Reservoir Dogs, my beloved The Social Network), because to sit with how the end of an intense, platonic¹ relationship makes them feel would come at the expense of their masculinity.

To be clear, I love when men overflow with so much emotion that they just have to start shooting guns about it. That’s part of why I enjoyed the new Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin, a film about the bitter, bloody aftermath of Brendan Gleeson friend divorcing Colin Farrell². I won’t spoil too much here, but I will say that there’s less of an emphasis on guns, unlike McDonagh’s last film to star those two actors, 2008’s In Bruges. Still, extremities are chopped off and property is damaged and lives are lost. An entire island is thrown into disarray because two depressed men stop drinking beer together in the afternoons. It’s sort of beautiful.

One gay beer for my gay friend

Do you know a boy who loves In Bruges? I’m sure you do. In Bruges is a classic boy movie and so of its time. Banshees is its more mature follow-up, reuniting McDonagh with the Gleeson-Farrell duo and narrowing that macabre story of talkative Irish contract killers into something more intimate. In both, Gleeson plays an aging man pondering what, if anything, is left for him in life, and Farrell plays that one wet cat.

In Bruges begins in the wake of a job gone wrong, with the seasoned hitman Ken (Gleeson) and his rookie counterpart Ray (Farrell) going to hide out in the touristy Belgian city of Bruges as they await communication from their handler. They’re a prickly, bantering pair: A fairytale setting and vast history are enough to keep Ken satisfied, while Ray spends most of his time in Bruges complaining about how much he absolutely hates being in Bruges. We learn that Ray is teetering on the edge and searching for the will to go on after accidentally killing a child, and that Ken is reflecting on the choices he’s made to get him where he is and hoping he’ll eventually find peace in death.

If I can BeReal for a sec, I don’t particularly love In Bruges. Or, I mean, I don’t love it as a comedy. As a contained story about two very different men drifting aimlessly through a foreign city, considering their lives and each other, I think it’s great. It’s when McDonagh leans into that grating style of lazy, early Apatowian “you know how I know you’re gay?” type comedy that In Bruges falters — babe, where even are the jokes? I obviously get why boys love it so much: McDonagh’s verbose, fuck-laden screenplay is quick and witty, the story is pretty tight, and it balances genuinely affecting displays of grief and regret with the firing of weapons and big red bursts of blood. It proves that Ray, an off-putting man who says odd things, can find an off-putting, but most importantly still sexy, woman (Clémence Poésy) to instantly become infatuated with him. There are few consequences for rage and violence in In Bruges. It’s a true male fantasy. It’s Fleabag for fellas.

In Bruges works best when you consider that it’s about the nobility of a friend breakup. Ken receives orders from their employer, Harry (Ralph Fiennes, in his pre-JK Rowling defender years) to kill Ray as punishment for murdering a kid. Ultimately, Ken can’t do it, moved as he is by the sight of a guilt-ridden Ray holding a gun to his own head. He knows helping Ray live could result in his own whacking, but he’s willing to sacrifice himself to give his friend a chance at healing. In Bruges is brutal, but it rejects the temptation of betrayal. 

There’s a tenderness between Ken and Ray that allows them to amicably attempt to go their separate ways. Ken eventually does die for Ray, and it’s more or less his own choice. McDonagh leaves Ray’s ultimate fate unknown, but in Ray’s final voiceover, there’s clarity in his realization that he does, in fact, want to live — one he wouldn’t have arrived at without first watching Ken die. Sometimes you just can’t kill your friend because he’s too pathetic. Sometimes you have to leave someone for you both to get better, and sometimes a friend breakup is worth it if you both get to come out of it with a sense of self-actualization. It doesn’t always happen that way, but when it does, it might just save your life.

A brief note on Jeremy Strong

I won’t write an entire issue on my number one boy (haha… unless?) but I did roll up to a 10:30am showing of the new Jeremy Strong vehicle, Armageddon Time, this past Saturday. It’s about America and fathers and sons and coming of age, so obviously it’s a boy movie, but I’m not weighing in on the film’s quality. I am only here to confirm that Jeremy Strong has once again slayed the house down. I maintain that he shines brightest on TV, a medium where he can really let his unparalleled talent for long-form explorations of broken men shine, but he learned to fix a refrigerator for this role and I love him for it. His hangdog expression will always compel me. If you have anything critical to say about him you’ll first have to file the correct paperwork with me and I’ll get back to you with a response in 7-10 weeks.

• I watched Barbarian before the end of scary movie season and uhhhh literally line delivery of the year. Justin Long is eternal.

• A great piece about Inishmore, the island The Banshees of Inisherin was filmed on.

• Jeremy Strong on Marc Maron was lovely.

1. This might go without saying but I obviously think all of these movies can and should be read through a gay lens. Like, I’m civilized.

2. About Colin Farrell: I consider him a girl actor who happened to fall into a boy movie career. He’s a real girl’s girl, even when he’s doing boy shit. A boy actor could not serve damsel in distress as he so beautifully does in The Beguiled (girl movie, duh) or even commit to the level of Italian American camp (I’ll allow it) that he turns out under all those prosthetics in The Batman (boy movie, duh). He does pitiful loser just as well as he does hard-ass, and it never comes across as off-puttingly macho. There’s an unselfconsciousness to him, an almost feminine quality that reminds me of how Ayo Edebiri once described Austin Butler: He’s not just an actor, he’s an actress. The man is always finding a way to girl shit up. I adore him, and I love when he makes the face that turns his eyebrows into this shape: /\