Tim Mielants, “Small Things Like These” (2024)
Adapted from the novella of the same name by Claire Keegan, “Small Things Like These” is an understated character study that underlines the role ordinary people can play in highlighting social injustice when and where it occurs – and in doing so change society. Set in a town in southern Ireland in the mid-1980s, the film uncovers a secret evil in that town through Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy), a coal dealer who, in the course of delivering coal to his customers, discovers that one of his customers – a Roman Catholic convent that, among other things, educated his wife Eileen (Eileen Walsh) and currently schools his two eldest daughters – is also running a Magdalene asylum in which teenage girls considered to be “fallen” (because they became pregnant outside marriage or were raped) and girls from orphanages are forced to do laundry and other heavy work, and are subjected to abuse. This discovery disturbs Bill, as it reminds him of his own childhood – the son of a single parent, he and his mother were fortunate enough to be given shelter by her wealthy employer, but he still suffered bullying from other children because of her unmarried status – and despite warnings from his wife, a pub owner and the Mother Superior (Emily Watson) of the convent that the nuns and the Roman Catholic Church can destroy him and his family if he exposes the convent’s secret, the coal dealer resolves that the next time he meets Sarah (Zara Devlin), a young pregnant teenager he meets at the convent, he will do what he can to help her.
The film is quite slow, and its tone can be dreary, even oppressive, in keeping with the nature of the closed and stultifying society that existed in Ireland for much of the 20th century. The action takes place over the Christmas season – a period of dull, drizzly weather, snow and long periods of daily darkness that end late in the morning and start early in the afternoon. A suffocating atmosphere is created in which an ordinary man like Furlong has difficulty speaking up and out about things troubling him, even to his wife and five daughters. Bill’s inarticulate nature compels whoever plays him to communicate Bill’s compassionate character and his increasing unease about Sarah and what is really happening to her through his facial expressions, emotions and body language. In this, Cillian Murphy and his soulful face and eyes do sterling work. Of the supporting cast, Watson’s Mother Superior is a stand-out as a controlling, hypocritical bitch who would not be out of place directing Mafia gangsters on their next contracts.
The film appears to follow the novella (which I haven’t read) quite faithfully and ends at a crossroads point in Bill’s life, after which one can presume everything goes completely haywire for him, Eileen and their children, regardless of whether the town supports his decision or not. The message is that individuals can choose to follow their consciences or the herd, and following one’s conscience may lead to great difficulty and upheaval not only for the individual concerned, but for his/her family and other relationships as well. Yet one small act of kindness, born of one’s conscience and compassion for others, may lead to other similar small acts that snowball into an avalanche of social change for the better.
Viewers may note the irony of an oppressive patriarchal institution that targets and abuses young women girls, yet is managed and maintained by older women, and which depends on the passivity of other adult women not to challenge what it does – and whose secret is brought out into the open by a compassionate man who, through his own childhood experiences of being bullied and abused, and seeing his mother suffer, can empathise with others’ suffering and thus become a catalyst for social change.