SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE
(director: Tim Mielants; screenwriters: based on the novel by Liadan Dunlea/Enda Walsh; cinematographer: Frank van den Eeden; editor: Alain Dessauvage; music: Senjan Jansen; cast: Emily Watson (Sister Mary), Peter Claffey (Barry), Eileen Walsh (Eileen Furlong), Cilian Murphy (Bill Furlong), Patrick Ryan (Pat), Clare Dunne (Sr. Carmel), Helen Behan (Mrs. Kehoe), Michelle Fairley (Mrs. Wilson), Zara Devlin (Sarah Redmond), Sarah Morris (Sarah’s mother), Agnes O’Casey (Sarah Furlong), Louis Kirwan (Young Bill Furlong), Mark McKenna (Younger Ned), Liadan Dunlea (Kathleen Furlong); Runtime: 98; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Alan Moloney, Cilian Murphy, Catherine Magee, Matt Damon, Drew Vinton, Jeff Robinov; Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions; 2024-Ireland, Belgium, USA)
“Intense and somber Irish morality drama.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Tim Mielants (“Patrick”/”Will”) directs this intense and somber Irish morality drama, filmed as a character study that veers back and forth in time. It’s based on the 2021 novel by Liadan Dunlea, the winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and is scripted by Enda Walsh.
The film is set during the Christmas season in 1985. It was a time the Catholic Church’s of Ireland supported abusive workhouses for unwed mothers, where Catholic religious orders housed unwed mothers who were forced to work in abusive working conditions until their babies had been born and given away for adoption.
The shy, taciturn Bill Furlong (Cilian Murphy) is a hard-working Catholic coal deliverer living in the small town of New Ross, in County Wexford, Ireland, who dares to challenge the community code of silence around the infamous Magdalene laundries. He’s considered a respected member of the community even though born out of wedlock to a resilient teenage mom, Sarah (Agnes O’Casey), who was sheltered by a wealthy Protestant family to avoid being abused by the Catholic Church.
The easy-going Bill has a wife Eileen (Eileen Walsh) who warns him to look away rather than try and help everyone he meets in need of help. He’s the father to five daughters, who all attend Catholic school.
One day while delivering coal to the church laundry, he sees the terrified unwed pregnant girl Sarah (Zara Devlin) being forcefully brought into the convent by her mother (Sarah Morris) and he checks it out inside. The girls there remind him of his own unmarried mother.
The frigid nun in charge of this bureaucratic tyranny, Sister Mary (Emily Watson), the mother superior, is aware that if Bill reports this sighting it could damage the reputations of the nun and the church. She relies on his silence because she has his daughters’ educational future in her hands and believes she can bribe him with money to say nothing.
Though too slow paced to be entertaining, it’s nevertheless a poignant film that calls attention to how church policy isn’t always the right one. The film’s finest moments can be attributed to the sensitive and brilliant performance by Cilian Murphy as the perfect hero who knows that to remain silent about what he’s seen is a sin against mankind.
It played at the Berlin Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 11/20/2024 GRADE: B
dennisschwartzreviews.com