Pádraic Súilleabháin has only one friend. His name is Colm Sonny Larry Doherty. They live on the same island, they are Irish and they only do one thing: have a pint of stout at two in the afternoon and a few more at night in the village pub. And they talk. They talk a lot about things that are so unimportant that they are, for that very reason, crucial. According to Colm, Pádraic once told him about the droppings of his donkey. For example. During two hours. The talk gave for that. And it was a good talk, a decent talk, at least for Pádraic. And every day is that, that’s the story of their friendship, it macerates in the apathetic and rural routine of two guys who have nothing else to do than be the other’s best friend, and so on to infinity, or actually until one day Colm gets bored. Or until he realizes that at some point in the not too distant future he’s going to die, which is the same thing. And then that day Colm starts avoiding Pádraic. And then Pádraic goes and tells him that if he said something to him that was wrong, or if he behaved as he shouldn’t behave, he should forgive him. And Colm tells him that everything is fine and there’s nothing to apologize for. And then Pádraic, already a bit desperate because it doesn’t have too many lights, poor thing, asks him: but then what happened, why do you avoid me like that if I didn’t do anything to you and if everything is as it always is. And then Colm tells him: I just don’t want to be your friend anymore. End.
This is the story, very simple, linear and fantastic, of the spirits of the islandthe Martin McDonagh film that premiered this Thursday in Uruguay and who aspires to nine Oscarsincluding one for each protagonist: Colin Farrelwhich makes good Pádraic, and Brendan Gleesonwhich makes the good old Colm.
the spirits of the island It is, obviously, a story of the end of the world. Or the end of the world for Pádraic, because for him losing Colm’s friendship means that: the end. Of everything. Or everything worth existing for. He accuses the blow in the most radical way and has a hard time recovering. In fact, the recovery, the question of the possibility of an eventual reconciliation or, in any case, a life after Colm, is what moves the film, which also generates reprisals in the form of severed fingers, threats, and silent violence. that puts Pádraic morally on the ropes. And he’s just a nice guy who wants his friend back. Nothing else.
Regardless of his successes as a film, the pain felt by Farrell’s character —one that, on the other hand, if Brendan Fraser doesn’t stop him will give him the Oscar for best actor— we can all understand, even if it is not one particularly explored. . And this is so because That duel, the end of friendship, is one that is usually swept under the rug as if nothing happened when in most cases those friendships that end are even longer relationships than those of a couple. And they can hurt more.
Colin Farrell and Barry Keoghan in The Spirits of the Island
Farewell to friends is something we all expose ourselves to sooner or later. It’s part of the life cycle: distancing. Sure, it won’t happen with all circles and lifelong friendships do exist, but as we grow older, as we enter different stages of life, and as our characteristics and preferences begin to shift and take new directions, friends change. Some are left behind. Others stay there, even when what makes us friends is over at some point. And again: others come and stay forever. The chain of friendship is fed back and, although the drastic changes are not usually too many, they happen. This is how clinical psychologist María Hurtado sees it, for example, interviewed by El País in Madrid:
“Friendship and its forms evolve according to individual needs and the vital moment that is going through. As our lifestyle changes, independent friends that we meet in different fields predominate, as well as different groups related to our current situation with whom we acquire even more relational quality”.
The goodbye to the friend will happen, then. And arrive abruptly as in the case of Pádraic and Colm, or leave in fade out over the years due to routine or other reasons as or more corrosive, that end leaves traces. Traces that persist and mark the beginning of a form of mourning that has its own characteristics and triggers.
Hugo Selma, psychologist and assistant professor at the Institute of Clinical Psychology of the Faculty of Psychology (Udelar), assures that friendships and their intricacies do not occupy the first places in the consultations of patients, but tend to appear frequently in the midst of conversations. conversations. The subject crosses everyone and, at some point, conflicts, clashes or otherwise, the support or support of a friendly group end up being part of the therapies.
“In most cases, the presence of long-standing friendships is usually an indicator of good mental health., precisely because to be able to maintain a relationship for so long, a lot of resources are necessary, to have flexibility, the ability to adapt, to forgive, to ask for forgiveness. Having a well-built social network is a good symptom, but things can sometimes happen in that network, differences can appear that can cause it to break. And that works, of course, ”he explains.
In any case, Selma assures that it is not so common for a relationship between friends to break abruptly – as happens to the characters of the spirits of the island—, something that does happen almost necessarily at the end of a couple. In that case, the emotionality of the bond is considerably more intense and implies a much greater codependency, so there are not many “alternative” ways to end the situation. You have to cut suddenly and it can be more violent. Not necessarily more painful.
Pixabay
“The end of a friendship is a radical loss —writes the author Patti Miller in The Guardian, in a note that compiles the end of a friendly bond that included her—, but it is not analyzed in the same way as the end of a marriage or an affair. He feels embarrassed; certainly not something to talk about with other friends. It’s not the kind of pain that someone writes a poem or a song about; no drama or passion, just humiliation. In four years the pain has faded, or rather, it seems like an artifact kept behind glass in a museum cabinet, all its ability to hurt gone, but I still feel bewildered at times. It seems that it is time to reclaim the pain and confusion of the end of friendships: it is time to write, sing and talk about it.
definitions of friendship
Friendship relationships are as different as the people who build the bond. In fact, the word itself can have very different meanings depending on who is saying it.
“The word friend is a bit ambiguous. At some point we did a study on personality in Uruguay and we asked how many friends the person had, and we were surprised by the enormous number of people who told us that they had zero friends. What did the term mean to these people? It is true that there are different styles of relating, some of which are more superficial, and under this concept you can perhaps have fifty friends. And there are people who have closer ties and define their friends with more levels of affinity. There is no magic number to talk about friendship, although it is true that the popular saying in general has something to do with what happens in reality. If we are talking about very close friends, it is difficult to find someone who has more than ten”, explains Selma and makes it clear: friends cannot be counted on the fingers of one hand, but almost. At most with one and a half hands.
However, the number of friends also depends on the age range, since there are moments in life when we make friends without stopping. According to a study presented jointly by Oxford University and Aalto University, Finland, from adolescence to the age of 25 we accumulate friends without stopping. From that age the amount begins to dwindle; We become more aware of our relationships and we begin to take care of those that we consider most valuable. That’s when real friends stay.
Differences also affect friendships based on gender. A friendly bond between two men, between two women, or between a woman and a man is not the same. The most noticeable differences appear there: at the end. When conflict appears and the relationship is put to the test.
“Conceptually, there should not be great differences between the friendship ties that women and men have, but there are cultural issues and in the clinic some particularities are observed, especially in the resolution of conflicts. In general, male friends tend to solve problems more frontally, more directly, and sometimes in the case of female friends it is a little more complex, communication is filtered more by hints, encrypted messages and that sometimes makes it difficult to resolve conflicts, which are inevitable in any type of relationship because two people want the same thing or think the same thing all the time is impossible. The differences may be due to cultural guidelines, to issues such as that men must be culturally decisive, for example, or that in the conflicts of female friendships there is more group participation, more intermediaries”, says Selma.
If you take the way in which Pádraic and Colm resolve their conflict, which begins with a sharp and unappealable ultimatum by the latter, one can quite agree with this last statement by the Uruguayan psychologist. In the spirits of the island the post-rupture shock will take time to arrive but there will be noise in it. And it will be very direct, pragmatic let’s say, although also tinged with pain, at least for poor Pádraic. He’s known since Colm told him: the end of friendship isn’t something else. Open a period of mourning and the character has his. You have to go to the movies, however, to see how it ends.
