In a culture completely intoxicated by “main character energy,” we have developed a toxic obsession with being interesting. We crave the edgy, the elite, and the intellectually complex. We want to be the deep artists composing symphonies, or at the very least, the people too important to be bogged down by the mundane.
In Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin, Colm embodies this exact modern disease. He looks at his lifelong best friend, Pádraic, and coldly decides he has no room for “dullness” anymore. He wants to create art that outlives him. He wants to be profound. To do it, he sacrifices a man whose only crime is being entirely, unconditionally nice.
When Colm sneers at Pádraic’s simple nature, Pádraic fires back with the most radical line in modern cinema: “But you used to be nice… What’s the matter with nice?”
As it turns out, everything is the matter with nice, at least to a world addicted to drama.
The Cost of the “Interesting” Life
We see it everywhere today. The obsession with being different and edgy has turned human connection into a performance. People twist themselves into knots trying to look unique, and in the process, they become self-absorbed, untrustworthy, and cruel. They trade safety for status. They choose passive-aggressive insults, rumors, and high-school-level gossip just to feel a fleeting sense of superiority or excitement.
They view quiet, loyal people as “boring” background characters to be used, talked about, and discarded when they no longer serve the narrative.
But what Colm, and the toxic people in our own lives, fails to realize is that “boring” is a luxury. Predictability is a privilege. To have a friend or a partner who doesn’t judge your past, doesn’t demand you perform for them, and doesn’t inject unnecessary drama into your atmosphere is the closest thing to peace we can achieve on this earth.
The Grief of the Unappreciated
We don’t appreciate the Pádraics of the world until they are gone. I am reminded of an ex-partner of mine who thrived on drama. Near the end of our relationship, a close friend of his passed away. I vividly remember seeing his public mourning, crying out how much he missed their “talks about nothing.” I had met that friend briefly. He was a beautiful, gentle soul, the exact kind of person people usually dismiss as unremarkable while they are alive.
It is a devastating human pattern: we ignore the quiet harbor while we chase the storm, only to beg for the harbor once we are drowning.
I would rather listen to someone talk about donkey feces and absolute nothingness for hours on end than endure another minute of superficial, status-driven malice. A life built around taking care of your animals, loving your family, and being genuinely kind to your neighbors isn’t a wasted life. It is a triumphant one.
Guarding the Shield
The true tragedy of The Banshees of Inisherin is that the island eventually wins. The cruelty of Colm’s existential boundary-setting forces Pádraic to stop being “just nice.” By the time the screen fades to black, the innocent little donkey is dead, the house is burned down, and Pádraic’s gentle soul has been permanently hardened into a bitter shell. The world succeeded in making him “interesting” by making him angry.
We need to stop apologizing for being dull. We need to stop letting the chaotic noise of the world burn down our inner fields. In a world full of Colms amputating their own happiness for pride, may we all be lucky enough to find a pre-war Pádraic, and may we have the wisdom to hold onto him when we do.