Buckle up, everyone. If you’re in a bad place right now because of the recent election, this one might hit pretty close to home.
Small Things Like These was helmed by Tim Mielants, a respectable TV director who hasn’t really made any films of note. Likewise, screenwriter Enda Walsh hasn’t written much of anything more notable than a third of that bugfuck animated 2022 movie, The House. No, the real star here is producer Cillian Murphy. Though we’ve also got Ben Affleck and Matt Damon producing through their new Artists Equity shingle.
The upshot is that this one came right outta nowhere.
We lay our scene in the mid-80s, in a rural Irish town where all life and education more or less revolves around the local convent. Murphy plays Bill Furlong, a dedicated family man with five young daughters (!!!) and a business selling coal to the locals. Unfortunately, times are tough for a local entrepreneur and it’s all Bill can do to keep the lights on.
The plot starts going with the gradual realization that bad things are afoot at the local convent. What kind of bad things? Well, to be perfectly blunt, it’s the Magdalene Asylum scandal. Women all over Ireland are being abducted and put to slave labor, their children forcibly taken from them and sold for “adoption”. But none of this is directly explained or addressed until the dedication title card at the end.
Put it this way: You know those movies about a scrappy underdog who fights to investigate wrongdoing by a massively powerful organization that everyone else is too afraid of? Erin Brockovich is of course the definitive example, but we’ve also got Spotlight, Concussion, Dark Waters, that kind of thing. Hell, Philomena was another story in this lane that dealt with the Magdalene asylums.
Now imagine one of those movies, but it’s only the first half-hour stretched out into 100 minutes. That’s what we’ve got here.
It’s 100 solid minutes of Bill slowly coming to realize that something is wrong, even though he doesn’t have any kind of proof. Hell, he doesn’t even know for a certainty exactly what’s wrong, except nobody at the convent seems particularly happy and the nuns are strangely aggressive in shooing him out. Hell, the local Mother superior (played by Emily Watson) outright tries to buy him off at one point.
Even stranger, it’s like everyone in town knows that something is going on at the convent and nobody wants to talk about it. The most emphatic case in point is Bill’s wife (Eileen, played by Eileen Walsh), who repeatedly nags at Bill to keep his head down, mind his business, take whatever money comes in, and don’t rock the boat for fear the convent might deny their daughters a decent education. And while she does have a point that taking any kind of action is risky, Bill isn’t comfortable with the notion that doing the right thing is a luxury afforded only to the rich. It also sucks that the family apparently has so little that they’re only barely scraping by and yet so much that they can’t afford to lose.
And again, it’s not like Bill is in a position to do anything about this. He’s not a politician, he’s not a cop, he’s not even a journalist. Literally the only thing he can do — the only thing he really knows how to do — is vent his frustration by shoveling coal. And also by aggressively scrubbing his own hands raw at the end of the day.
What we’ve got here is 100 solid minutes of a man struggling with his conscience. There’s nothing he can do, and yet he can’t do nothing. It’s a sympathetic position to be in, especially so soon after the recent election. (*ahem*) And yes, Cillian Murphy is especially good at playing the brooding central man, internally conflicted over his scruples (Oppenheimer, anyone?). Even so, the fact remains that we know that something is awful is happening in the background, nothing about it is ever definitively exposed, and our protagonist is unable and/or unwilling to take any action against it. This makes for a long and miserable viewing experience.
Even so, it bears mentioning that the film does end on a marginally hopeful note. After all, doing literally anything is a victory when everyone says there’s nothing you can do. Even the smallest gesture can be meaningful, especially between two people who barely have anything to give at all.
Small Things Like These is one of those movies I respect more than I like. It’s the kind of movie I’m glad I saw once and only once. The film is a harshly bitter medicine, a hopeful message wrapped in a depressing movie made for depressing times.
This was made of, by, and for the hardcore arthouse crowd. This movie will find its audience, and its audience will be happier for it. But I don’t think anyone else will have the patience for this picture, and I doubt that even its most stalwart supporters will say that it was fun or easy to sit through.