Small Things Like These review: Cillian Murphy is astonishing and ...
Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) is worried. The days are getting shorter, the nights seem to last forever, and our weary protagonist is beginning to lose himself.
What is it, Bill wonders, that keeps him up at night, that won’t allow his mind to settle? Why is he so afraid to talk about it?
His wife Eileen (Eileen Walsh) thinks it’s a Christmas problem. This time of the year is rarely easy and always busy. The people of New Ross rely on Bill, a valued coal and timber merchant, to keep their houses warm and he’s lucky if he makes it home on time for dinner.
The workdays are interchangeable. First on the site, first to make deliveries, last one to leave. Every now and then, Bill might encounter something he wasn’t expecting. A young boy collecting sticks on the side of the road, perhaps – or a neighbour who appears to have fallen on hard times. Or something worse.
At home, his five girls wait for dad to assist with their studies. Afterwards, when everyone’s gone to bed, Eileen might have a glass of sherry and tell her husband about her day.
Bill, sipping his tea – always tea – will eventually ask his wife if she ever worries. About what, though? Eileen isn’t interested in those kinds of conversations. When he tells her what he saw in the convent, however, that a young girl approached him and begged for his help, she isn’t quite so flippant.
“They’re not our girls,” Eileen tells him, and we are in no doubt as to what they’re talking about, and what will happen if Bill interferes. Sister Mary (Emily Watson), the ghastly mother superior at the convent, has already made that clear.
Bill, then, will continue living with terrible secrets. Secrets about his upbringing, about a father he never knew, a mother taken too soon, and a Christmas when his world imploded. He will, for his family’s sake, keep quiet about the appalling institutional abuse in his community. But for how long?
Cillian Murphy: Small Things Like These film tries to stay ‘faithful to book’
Based on an award-winning novella by Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These is not an easy watch. It plays by its own rules and moves to its own beat. Indeed, Keegan’s original tale is renowned not just for its story, but for the way its author tells it.
At its core, Small Things Like These is about a man in 1980s rural Ireland who discovers a Magdalene Laundry in his local convent, and who feels compelled to do the right thing, even when everyone around him tells him not to.
These kinds of stories are difficult to convey on screen. Push too hard, and the entire operation might collapse into saccharine melodrama. Hold back, and viewers will wonder why you bothered in the first place. Somehow, director Tim Mielants and screenwriter Enda Walsh find the perfect balance.
Their film, like the book, is a simple, delicate beauty, and Murphy’s Mr Furlong holds it all in place. He is, without question, a kind soul, the sort of man who doesn’t say much but who sees everything. You know the type.
He’s also a man with a tragic past, and this quiet, devastating film – a modern Christmas parable that is practically Dickensian in places – explores that past with confidence and clarity.
Too many Irish screen stories spoil themselves with overwritten dialogue – not this one, and Enda Walsh’s character exchanges are both thoughtful and intelligent. See, for instance, an extraordinarily tense encounter between Furlong and Sister Mary, when the latter invites her observant coal man in for tea and cake.
Afterwards, she places a thick envelope full of cash between them. A Christmas bonus, she tells him – but we know exactly what she’s trying to buy.
Anxiety-inducing stuff and Watson is tremendous. So, too, is Eileen Walsh, who has the trickiest role of all. Eileen isn’t a bad person, not really. She’s just afraid for her family, terrified that her husband might risk their future for a stranger. To Eileen’s mind, the people who lead the happiest lives are the ones who keep their heads down and do what they’re supposed to. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t care.
Complicated characters, then, make for interesting performances, and Walsh has never been better. Likewise, Murphy is astonishing. That man’s stare could stop time if it wanted to and he uses it brilliantly here. Without Murphy, Small Things Like These would still be a powerful film; with him, it’s a near-perfect one.
Essential viewing.
Five stars
