⅘ stars
Belgian director Tim Mielants delivers a potent adaptation of Claire Keegan’s novella of the same title, uncovering the skeletons in the closet of Irish society. The film’s setting is a quiet and unassuming town in the south-east of the country during the mid 1980’s, a locality reeling from the affliction they choose to ignore. Small Things Like These highlights the complicit nature of a Nation under the control of the Catholic church who “have their fingers in every pie”.
Recent Academy Award winner Cillian Murphy returns to the big screen playing the stoic and methodical Bill Furlong, a coal merchant with a blackened past. The father of five girls was born out of wedlock, a crying sin in mid 20th century Ireland. In turn, Bill’s past casts a shadow of shame which eclipses him for the entirety of the film’s 1 hour 38 minute run time.
Bill’s life is that of monotony, as he lets out a small sigh with each bag of coal he lifts. He lives the same day every single day, making deliveries from his coal truck, before returning home to methodically scrub his hands in a somewhat stained sink. Until one day, he makes a startling discovery while delivering coal to his local convent, as he investigates, he unearths shocking truths about the Magdalene Laundries and the secrets of the sisterhood.
Both Mielants and Murphy nail this harrowing portrayal of society’s ineptitude in the face of absolute evil. The face of this evil is Emily Watson’s Sister Mary, an unnerving and steely nun at the helm of the atrocities at the “Good Shepherd Convent”. Watson herself delivers a powerful performance, which substantiates the magic of Murphy’s execution as Bill Furlong. This story of an unlikely hero, or rather martyr, will start necessary conversations of Ireland’s social progression for years to come.