I wrote this a while back, after watching the film alone. I remember the scene when Colm Doherty cut off his finger. I was sitting in the back of the theatre, and I felt, this is strange to admit, good.

This is a story about two men who have been friends forever, until one of them decides they're not friends anymore. Just like that. Colm's reason sounds insane at first: Padraic is dull. He's doing nothing with his life. He's wasting the time of anyone with talent. You know that theory, that you're the average of the five people closest to you? Colm believes it. And if you want to be extraordinary, if you want to be an artist, you cannot afford to keep dull people close.

Here's the dilemma the film is really about: artists tend to hang out with other artists. They understand each other. But they don't love each other - not the way friends do, not the way lovers do. What does an artist actually want? An audience. A witness. And honestly, who makes a better witness than someone too ordinary to compete with you?

Think about poor Dominic. He doesn't get Siobhan's love, and mostly it's because he's too eager, too desperate. If he'd been as detached as Colm, that artistic coolness, that practiced indifference, I'm convinced Siobhan would have given him a chance. That's what artists want: someone watching. What they can't stand is someone needing them.

But here's the thing about Colm cutting off his fingers: it's not brave. It's cowardice. Someone is at their weakest when the only way they can move things forward is by hurting themselves. That's not sacrifice. That's desperation dressed up as principle.

Colm is scared. He's old, and he knows he's going to die soon, maybe not tomorrow, but soon enough. He wants to be remembered. He wants to matter. And he is terrified of becoming Padraic. That fear is the whole engine of the film. Colm isn't really rejecting his friend. He's running from the version of himself that might have been content with a pint and some conversation, that might have died without leaving anything behind. Padraic is a mirror Colm can't bear to look into.

And yet, when Padraic finally sets Colm's house on fire, he becomes exactly what Colm became. The dull man and the artist, both reaching for violence when they've run out of words. The fire is no different from the shears. Two men destroying things because they don't know what else to do.

The donkey dying because of Colm's severed finger, and that's the blackest joke in a film full of black jokes. The purest creature, killed by the fallout of someone else's ego. Jenny didn't choose sides. She just loved Padraic. And she became collateral damage in a war she never understood.

That's the cost of art, the film seems to say. Or at least the cost of wanting so badly to be remembered that you'll sacrifice everything gentle around you.

Starring: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan
Runtime: 114 minutes
Director: Martin McDonagh
Writer: Martin McDonagh
Producer/s: Graham Broadbent, Peter Czernin, Martin McDonagh
Score: Carter Burwell