10 / 10
In Bruges is Martin McDonagh’s first feature and one of the great films of its decade. Colin Farrell plays Ray, an Irish hitman who has just botched his first job and accidentally killed a child. Brendan Gleeson plays Ken, the older hitman ordered to take Ray to Bruges and wait there until further orders. Ralph Fiennes plays Harry, their boss, who eventually shows up to deal with the situation. The plot can be described in two sentences. The film cannot.
The script was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar. It should have won. The dialogue does in two hours what most dialogue does not do in twenty. McDonagh had been a successful playwright before this film, and you can hear the theatrical pedigree in the rhythm of the lines, but he had also learned what stage dialogue could not do and used film to do it.
The Setup
Ray hates Bruges. The film opens with him sulking through medieval canals, watching tourists, taking the boat tour, and generally being miserable about being alive. Ken loves Bruges. He sees the architecture, the canals, the bell tower, the museums. The contrast is the whole first act. The script never explains it. The audience learns who these two men are by watching them fail to enjoy the same vacation.
This is patient filmmaking. The major dramatic question of what they are doing in Bruges and why they cannot leave is not answered until well into the second act. The film trusts the audience to stay engaged with two men sitting in a medieval city talking about it.
For Writers
Character is revealed faster through contrast than through exposition. In Bruges opens with two characters who react oppositely to the same environment. The audience learns more about Ray from his reaction to a church than from any backstory the film could have provided. Ken’s pleasure in the same church teaches the audience equal amounts about him. The lesson is that putting characters in a neutral situation and watching them react is faster than telling the reader who they are. Contrast does the work that exposition would have to grind out.
The Tone
In Bruges is a comedy. It is also a tragedy. It is also a study of guilt and atonement. McDonagh shifts between tones within scenes, sometimes within single lines, and never breaks the film’s hold on the audience. The scene where Ray and Ken talk about the dead child while sitting in a swan boat is one of the most precise tonal balancing acts in modern cinema.
The supporting characters are weird in productive ways. The dwarf actor (Jordan Prentice) hired for a Dutch art film. The Belgian drug dealer. The pregnant hotel owner who will not leave her hotel. None of them feel like quirky additions. They feel like the kind of people you would actually meet in Bruges if you were hiding there.
For Writers
Tonal control is the hardest skill in dialogue-driven writing. Most writers commit to one register and stay there. McDonagh moves between comedy and tragedy within paragraphs without losing the reader. The trick is that the characters do not know they are in a comedy or a tragedy. They are just people responding to what is happening to them. The lesson is that tonal range comes from character honesty. Real people are funny when they are devastated and devastated when they are being funny. Honor that and the tone takes care of itself.
The Code
Harry’s code is the film’s moral spine. He believes children should not be killed under any circumstances. Ray killed a child. The code requires Ray to be killed. Harry comes to Bruges to do it himself because he will not ask Ken to do it, and Ken refuses anyway. The third act unfolds according to Harry’s rules, and Harry is willing to follow them all the way, including against himself, when his own actions in the film accidentally fall under the same prohibition.
The code is not endorsed by the film. The code is not parodied by the film. The film treats Harry as a man whose worldview has internal coherence and who will follow it to the worst conclusion. Ralph Fiennes plays him as a tightly-wound English working-class man with manners he is genuinely committed to, which is one of the great Fiennes performances.
For Writers
An antagonist with a coherent code is harder to defeat and more interesting to follow than an antagonist with mere appetites. Harry in In Bruges has rules. He follows them. He pays for them. The cost of his code is the third act of the film. The lesson is that giving an antagonist a clear moral principle that they will not violate makes them more dangerous, not less. The reader knows what they will do because they are predictable. The predictability is what makes the threat real.
Craft Note
Martin McDonagh wrote and directed his feature debut. Colin Farrell as Ray. Brendan Gleeson as Ken. Ralph Fiennes as Harry. Clémence Poésy as Chloé. Jordan Prentice as Jimmy. Carter Burwell composed the score. Filmed on location in Bruges. Released February 2008. Roughly thirty-three million dollar worldwide gross on a fifteen million dollar budget. Nominated for Best Original Screenplay Oscar. McDonagh went on to direct Seven Psychopaths, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, and The Banshees of Inisherin.
The Verdict
10/10. The script is the best original screenplay of its year by some distance. Farrell, Gleeson, and Fiennes are all doing some of their best work. The film is funny, devastating, profane, and humane in proportions that should not coexist and do. Watch it. Then watch it again with subtitles to catch the dialogue you missed.
FAQ
Is it actually in Bruges?
Yes. Filmed entirely on location. The Bruges Bell Tower, the canals, the medieval squares, the Memling paintings in the Groeningemuseum. All of it is real and accessible.
Who is Martin McDonagh?
Anglo-Irish playwright and filmmaker. Made his name with the Leenane Trilogy and other plays in the 1990s. In Bruges was his first feature. He has since made Seven Psychopaths, Three Billboards, and The Banshees of Inisherin, the last of which reunited Farrell and Gleeson.
Is the violence as bad as people say?
Yes. The film is genuinely violent at times and the violence is treated seriously rather than glamorously. The dead child is shown.
Is it really a comedy?
It is funnier than most comedies. It is also more devastating than most dramas. Both descriptions are correct.
Who else is in it?
Clémence Poésy as the local woman Ray falls for. Jordan Prentice as the dwarf actor. Thekla Reuten as the hotel owner. Eric Godon as a Bruges criminal.
How does it compare to McDonagh’s other films?
It is his best feature. Three Billboards is a close second. Seven Psychopaths is the lesser of the four. Banshees is the most artistically ambitious but In Bruges is the most complete.
Should I watch this?
Yes. Possibly one of the best ten or fifteen films of the 2000s.