Small Things Like These Director: Tim Mielants Starring: Cillian Murphy, Eileen Walsh, Emily Watson Genre: Big deal
Small Things Like These is a curious and clever film and book title. The film was adapted from the book published in 2021, a small, intense and very well-received small thing (a novella) about issues that aren’t small concerning small, punished Irish girls.
Like the book, the film is tough, tight, difficult and slow which nonetheless is very good and worth seeing. You won’t be entertained, there’s nothing amusing or passionate (not in a positive way), but your attention will be captured, you’ll fear the unknowns and detest the happenings.
What makes Small Things Like These very attention-grabbing is it is based on facts. The Roman Catholic convent’s Magdalene Laundries in Ireland harshly kept abandoned and orphaned girls from society from the 18th-20th centuries. In Small Things Like These, Cillian Murphy’s character discovers this in the 1970s in a hard way that is made even harder given his difficult childhood.
What also makes the film highly worth watching is the performance of Cillian Murphy. He’s an intensely serious actor who is very specific about the sorts of roles he plays these days. In the Peaky Blinders TV series (2013-2022), Oppenheimer (2023) and now Small Things Like These, he’s the standout performer who highlights extreme happenings during past generations. And is being appropriately rewarded. His next films will almost certainly be worth waiting for.
Don’t wait to see, read and learn about Small Things Like These, no matter how small they are!
Rating: Four things like this
