Hyde Park Pick: Small Things Like These

If the name Claire Keegan is ringing cinematic bells it may be because 2022’s The Quiet Girl was also an adaptation of one of her works. Whilst the two films have been helmed by different directors, there’s significant overlap in tone and the sensitivity with which each story unfolds. 

Set in 1985 on the run-up to Christmas in County Wexford, Ireland. Small Things Like These follows Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy), a coal merchant working to support himself, his wife and his five daughters. Early one morning while out delivering coal at the local convent, he makes a discovery that forces him to confront his past and the complicit silence of a town controlled by the Catholic Church.

There are two reasons to admire Belgian director, Tim Mielant’s adaptation, and one is as a standalone piece of work. Quiet and measured, Mielant’s take on Keegan’s slip of a novel expands it into a feature without piling in story or drama but by making space for the viewer and Bill to hand in hand piece through what’s happening, and why. Step-by-step we sit with Bill as he wrangles with past, both personal and social, and weighs up the consequences of the choices ahead of him. If Cillian Murphy doesn’t win all the awards next year it’s a crime of some form. Full of fury and compassion in alternating turns, he makes Bill real with every small gesture and expression. 

Separate to the power and skill in the construction of the film itself, there’s also the desperate urgency and importance of the story being told. Whilst set almost 40 years ago, Small Things Like These sets its lens on the infamous Magdalene Laundries in Ireland in such a way as to both remind us of the crimes of the past, and to ask us what acts we are complicit in today. But, whilst the suggestion of complicity in things which feel outside our control can be a scary thing to consider, I think there’s a power in Keegan’s story and how it reminds us of the power small actions can have to erode big problems.

Small Things Like These screens at HPPH from Fri 22 Nov. More info and tickets are available here.