‘Small Things Like These’ Review – Cillian Murphy’s Sublime Performance Propels this Gripping Drama | Berlinale 2024
Cillian Murphy's first post-Oppenheimer film is the culmination of the actor's creative reach in the industry to date. Based on the 2021 novel of the same name by Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These reunites Murphy with director Tim Mielant and screenwriter Enda Walsh, the screenwriter. Mielant has previously directed an episode of Peaky Blinders, and Walsh has a long history with Murphy on both stage and film; 2001's Disco Pigs being the most notable example of the latter. Additionally, Small Things Like These 2024 Afdah is co-produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's production company Artists Equity, which first became involved after Murphy expressed interest in adapting Keegan's novel for Damon on the set of Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. Fast forward to 2024, and audiences can enjoy an emotionally powerful film.
Such a Little Thing takes place in Ireland in 1985, more precisely as Christmas approaches. Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy), a coal merchant from a working-class family, is tasked with delivering endless amounts of coal to power the Irish town of New Ross during the winter, during his busiest season. One cold morning, while delivering orders to a local convent, Bill witnesses a young woman being forcibly taken into the religious institution at the entrance to the coal shed. After being covertly blackmailed by Sister Mary (Emily Watson), the convent's corrupt and vile superior, Bill falls into an inner crisis. With each birth, he must choose to face or ignore the disturbing secrets hidden within the convent's walls, unraveling memories of his own traumatic childhood.
This story explores the centuries of trauma caused by Ireland's Magdalene Laundries, also known as Magdalene Asylums. Under the order of the Roman Catholic Church, these convents accepted so-called "fallen women" - unwed mothers - who were considered social failures, in order to rehabilitate them. But between the 18th and late 20th centuries, thousands of women were forced into hard manual labor and other brutal abuses. Claire Keegan's novel and this film adaptation shine a light on the complicit silence and shame of Irish towns ruled by the Catholic Church. Cillian Murphy gives a sublime but understated performance as Bill Furlong. His eyes are filled with extreme guilt, fear and confusion, and his conscience wrestles with the community's ignorance to "fallen women" and their suffering.
The overarching dilemma that plagues Murphy's protagonist comes from his childhood, and it's all internalized, but director Tim Mielants does a great job of visualizing Bill's underlying conflict for the audience. The two stories, past and present, are inextricably linked, but Enda Walsh's script never explicitly states their connection. The viewer slowly begins to understand the significance of the sub-narrative about Bill's childhood as the plot progresses. This film available on Afdah movie.