Small Things Like These (2024)
Cillian Murphy plays a laborer in 1980s
Ireland who discovers some troubling truths in his town in Tim Mielants'
understated drama Small Things Like These.
Murphy plays Bill, a quiet but decent
family man who discovers a frightened young woman in a coal shed near a
property owned by nuns. The property is home to a Magdalene Laundry, which was
sort of a sweatshop/prison for promiscuous women. The laundries have also been
front and center of earlier films, including 2003's The Magdalene Sisters and
2013's Philomena.
The problem is the nuns (led by Emily Watson)
wield a lot of power in the town. If Bill says anything, there could be severe
social consequences for his family, as well as his daughters being denied
admittance to the local Catholic school. But Bill is the son of an unmarried
mother, so he's sympathetic to the plight of the young woman.
The movie's flaw is that it can be a
little too low-key at times. Films shouldn't always strive for melodrama or
spoon-feeding plot points, but there are occasions where Small Things Like
These feels downright coy.
But, overall, the film works. It has a
great sense of place and atmosphere. But the MVP of the movie is Murphy. He
manages to be highly expressive without being showy. It's an excellent
follow-up to his Oscar-winning performance in 2023's Oppenheimer.
Aside from criticisms of a barbaric
practice that lasted for far too long, the movie examines how horrible things
often happen because too many people are willing to look the other way because
the cost of doing something would be too great.
Small Things Like These is the
kind of adult-oriented drama people complain doesn't get made anymore but then
often forget to support in theaters when it does come out.
