User reviews

A friend of mine used to own a big gay bar in Dublin, and I recall being in it the day that marriage was legalised in Eire. One of the women celebrating was telling us of her childhood at the hands of the nuns in the 1970s. It was a ghastly story of women who hadn't an ounce of compassion between them all, and this film picks up that cudgel and swings it squarely at what it is little better than a religious equivalent of a Dickensian workhouse. The story is told from the perspective of local coal merchant "Bill" (Cillian Murphy) who lives with his wife and five daughters in a small town in Co. Wexford. Nobody has much money and some are reduced to gathering wood from the forest floor to heat their homes. By comparison, his family are quite well off and with Christmas looming all are anticipating a good family time. He supplies the local convent-cum-orphanage where the unwed girls of the community are deposited when they get in the family way, and it's here that he encounters a young lass locked in the coal shed. Freezing and terrified, he wonders how she got herself trapped in there - and that's where the story starts to focus on not just the inhumanity that prevailed, but on the internecine, web-like, tendrils of a church that brooked no resistance or interference. If you want a "peaceable life" then you'd best leave well alone. Can he, though? He is frequently reminded of his own childhood. One of tragedy, kindness, an hot water bottle and a jigsaw puzzle. "Bill" is a troubled man who has much to mull over as his conscience refuses to accept the societal compromises even his wife (Eileen Walsh) might prefer he adopt in the face of what he has now witnessed. This is definitely a less-is-more film, with an effective paucity of dialogue and a sense of oppressiveness that frequently overwhelms with it's simplicity. The setting demonstrates a degree of menace way more poignantly than any horror film, but horror this is - and an illustration of cruelty in it's most devastatingly subtle form. Murphy shines here, his performance allows his character to take us with him as we all observe a scenario unfold that might not have been out of place in 1885 - but in 1985? Not an easy watch, but well worth ninety minutes of your time.

Only a glimpse of the harsh reality that is the Magdalene laundries of Ireland.

Bill is a working class Irish man. He is married to Eileen and they gave 5 girls at home. Bill works on a coal yard and delivers it to various people. Bill heads to a convent where he becomes unsettled and after more deliveries he becomes more concerned with the happenings of the nuns. Bills dread follows him into Christmas as we get glimpses of his past as we piece together why he is so upset.

I think the movie is an important watch, I did think it would have leaned more into the convent side of things and the atrocities that took place but this was Bills story.

The whole movie I felt a pain in my chest, wanting him to say something to do something but also knowing the repercussions he and his whole family would face if they dare question the church.

The fact that these Hell holes were open til 1998 is a disgrace and embarrassment to this country, and the church, seeing the power nuns and priests believed they were entitled to is infuriating.

A good watch, beautiful performances, 7/10.

I could watch Murphy stare at a wall watching paint dry for 2 hours and I'd still buy a ticket.

Here, as Bill Furlong, he conveys a sadness that is rarely seen or understood by the people close to him. But we (the audience) can see it's there.

I won't go into the story that much. Honestly, there's not much there. But that doesn't mean it's a bad movie. It just means that it's a simple story. But one that is very well written, beautifully shot (The whole time, I believed I was in Ireland during the eighties) and incredibly well acted.

The Magdelene laundries were a real thing up until 1996, when the last one closed. Unmarried, pregnant teens were sent to monasteries to give birth and lose their child to forced adoption. All the while, they were abused as cheap labor by the nuns who were running the laundries. Sometimes, they were also physically abused and mistreated. It has left a mark on the soul of the country.

Eileen Walsh, who plays Ms. Furlong, also starred in the Magdalene sister, a movie from 2003. Coincidence or not: I suggest that you check it out because it's a perfect bookend to this gem of a movie.

'' Small Things Like These '' is a film based on a novella by the same title from the author Claire Keegan and, trully, it follows the book closely, presenting the story with a straight storyline and only a few flashbacks.

The story is quite moving, intriguing, sad, melancholic, and yet, hopeful and it overall feels like Christmas. The atmosphere is spot on, the cinematography brilliant, even the camera lenses were just the right ones to give the story that perfect setting.

In addition, the performances by everyone in the cast were briliant, but Cillian Murphy is just the right man for the right role in this one.

It took me a couple of days to process this movie. To all who asked me "did you like it?" I could not give an answer. I didn't like it and I didn't not like it for a simple reason, it's so absorbing, such a meditative experience that I just internalised it. There were times I realised I did not breath for a few seconds during scenes, other moments were I found myself smiling, some moments when I could feel the heaviness on my chest. It's the Ireland of the dark ages, when you start watching this movie you might feel you are in the 50s but really you are in the mid 80s, people were lucky if they had a job and warm place to sleep in, the Catholic Church ran the show and was so infiltrated in the institutions that they controlled education and therefore shaped the culture of the time. So we have this story, which unfortunately is a real one, that takes place in New Ross, Ireland. It's a small village, the movie makes a fantastic job in getting you into the oppressive atmosphere, even by showing the main character Bill Furlong doing very repetitive working tasks at the beginning, it's all part of getting you into the mood. Small village, close minded, everyone knows everything and anyone. Perception is crucial, show your best side, keep the bad hidden, omologate, don't think out of the box. And repeat. We meet Bill Furlong in the middle of a nervous breakdown, he was the fatherless child of a young mother, who was lucky enough to be raised by the woman his mother worked for. He has a hard childhood because despite being raised by a woman of money he does not belong to that world and the times are not kind to a fatherless child. He is trying to reckon with his past when one day delivering coal at the convent of the village he find a girl in the cold shed left there overnight. His struggle between personal interests and doing the right thing is powerful, he has 5 girls and the nuns control education and therefore the future prospects of his talented girls that he loves and worked his whole life to provide for, and doing the right thing, moral and ethic also putting on top of that that his mother could have been one of those girls if she wasn't as lucky to be taken in by a kind person. He is forced to look the other way, ignore other people suffering for the good of his own family, but when looking the other way is someone that understands pain, someone that has been there and knows what it means, looking the other way becomes so much harder. It's beautifully shot to highlight dark and gloomy to match the heavy tone of the story, I found the use of the blurring lenses incredible and key to the storyline, when you see something you do not want to see, that you want to block out. Scene with Eileen in the living room is such an incredible example: she is listening but ignoring, really she doesn't want to know. Eileen Walsh is absolutely phenomenal in portraying this woman who for a while you kind of think she's a coward but then you understand she is scared, she is doing that for the good of her family, how to blame her. Emily Watson is terrifying, she emanates power every word she utters without even making a move, she's towering even to a strong man, a great metaphor for the Catholic Church that managed to put into submission entire countries for centuries. Cillian Murphy, for one hour and thirty minutes, reminds you why he was given an Oscar six months ago. He was born with a gift and thankfully he decided to share it with the rest of us. I realised only after watching it that he probably has 10 minutes of talking time in the movie but it feels like he has 3 hours, because what he communicates with silence, with his face, with his pauses is absolutely out of this world. There is a scene he is driving his truck and stops and stays in breathing that I realised when it was over that I had not been breathing for the whole scene. If this movie was given a bit more attention by Lionsgate it could have been his second Oscar.

The silence of the movie is resounding, the absence of a strong soundtrack to enhance emotions is a choice, it's not your tears that they are going for, it is raw emotion. The movie is driven not by its plot but by its message, which is not judgemental, but invites you to think. The movie ends when the story begins, just like the book. But the message is so powerful and the dilemma so hard, that you spend two days questioning yourself what would you have done if you were Bill Furlong? A reflection on our society past and present, a must see, a small little work of art.

In 1985 devoted father of 5 Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) discovers disturbing secrets kept by the local convent and uncovers shocking truths of his own.

As my title says, this is a very tricky film to review. It's a heartfelt project which raises issues that cut deep in the religious country of Ireland. The Magdalene Institutions on which it is based, took in women and girls who were pregnant outside of marriage, sex workers, orphans, or just women who did not conform to social expectations of that time. They were typically worked hard and kept in austere circumstances, but the truth of the "Magdalene Laundries" run by nuns of the Roman Catholic faith, came out only when the buried remains of hundreds of women were found. And yet for decades there was talk about these inhuman institutions, run almost like workhouses or even prison camps by the nuns. And no-one did anything as the church was too deeply embedded in society. In the film Bill is warned not to say anything about what he witnessed at the convent, "because the nuns have fingers in everywhere, and if word got out it would backfire on you." And that's how it actually was, we know now. The nuns were evil, brutal women who sought not to rehabilitate, but exact vengeance on women they saw as unfit.

Now, the film reveals a little of that, but only a little. The manner in which it is filmed actually does not help it's message. Cillian Murphy spends a lot of the time in his scenes looking at the ground, or having flashbacks, and it is so much time that he is silent that I almost turned it off. I get that they were trying to offer some trauma from his childhood that explained why he intervened with the convent, but the message was almost lost in the long spans of...frankly...tedious nothingness. There was only 1 girl who we saw being mistreated so it would be easy to say, well all the other ones were treated much better. We now know they were not, but the film doesn't show that. They have taken an arty sort of approach which promotes the film, not the subject of the film.

That's why I think the film is tricky to review. On one hand it's beautiful cinema, albeit with too many, too-long pauses and introspective moments. On the other it is bringing...poorly...a deeply worrying and saddening message about the Magdalene Laundries. So for cinematic I would rate it one way, for the message it was trying to get across I would rate it much less, for the wasted 20 minutes on pauses that were unnecessary, and some flashbacks which being honest, I didn't even understand properly, I would rate it even less again.

I enjoyed it on some level but I think when you review a film of true events that caused trauma to countless thousands of young women over 70 years, you have a responsibility to make it the very best it can be. Front of stage, all of the time, should not be a coalman and his emotions, it should be the women who suffered. I finally decided on a score of 6, but I think I am rating it higher than I feel it should be, because the story...the true story of the Magdalene women, needs to be heard. I would love to see a better version.

It's unbelievable to know that this story takes place in 1985 and went on until 1997. Cillian Murphy's breathtaking performance takes you through the struggles from his past and the struggles in his present until the character of Bill Furlong can't take it any more. Filmed up close and very personal. You can hear every breath and feel his pain. Beautifully portrait by Tim Mielants. He is so close to all the characters, you can almost feel their hearts beat.

The story is one of the many sad examples of the influence of the churches in Europe until recently. Seeing this film at the Film Fest Gent gave it an extra dimension with Cillian Murphy introducing the film and wishing everyone a pleasant screening in Dutch. From the screen, due to his work on PB7 as we speak.

'Small Things Like These (2024)' is a quiet character study about a working-class man who learns of a long-ignored abusive situation and grapples with his conscience - as well as those around him - as to whether he should, or even could, do anything to prevent it. It feels incredibly relevant in today's society, essentially making the case that we shouldn't turn a blind eye to suffering just because it's easier - and expected - to do so. It posits that you should help in whatever small way you can, that kindness is courage and that going against the grain to do what's right is paramount even when the weight of the world's injustices feel so overwhelming that to ignore them seems like the only option. At the centre of the picture is Cillian Murphy's low-key, almost entirely insular performance. He puts in some phenomenal work and is able to convey a complete character arc with very little dialogue and even less on-the-nose exposition. The screenplay mostly implies rather than states, forcing the audience to interpret its events in order to fully understand the narrative (which isn't so much ambiguous as it is not spoon-fed). This makes for a deceptively quiet and mundane experience that feels really realistic. It's not the most entertaining movie in the world, but it isn't supposed to be and its creeping power can't quite be denied. Although I wish it did expand its ending somewhat to deliver at little more denouement, the final frames make it clear that the film has been about a choice rather than its aftermath. The climax cements the film as a character study, reinforcing the fact that each and every moment has been building up to the decision the lead makes in the last act. While the affair is generally rather slow and its pacing initially feels somewhat skewed, it's ultimately a rewarding and distinct effort that doesn't need to shout in order to be heard. It's pretty strong stuff.

Small Things Like These, based on Claire Keegan's acclaimed novella, is a subtle yet powerful exploration of guilt, redemption, and the quiet, often unnoticed lives of those living within a small Irish town. However, its cinematic translation, while visually stunning and tonally precise, leaves much to be desired in terms of narrative depth.

The film, much like its source material, focuses on Bill Furlong, a coal merchant who confronts the moral quandaries of his life when he discovers the abuse at a local convent. His emotional journey is largely internal, and the director embraces a minimalist, almost meditative style. The pacing is deliberate, slow, and emotionally sparse, which is both its strength and its potential flaw. The frustration that permeates the film mirrors the moments of quiet tension between characters, especially Bill's interactions with Mrs. Furlong and his silent, drawn-out struggle with the decision of whether to act on his discovery.

Visually, the film captures the cold, bleak atmosphere of the setting. The muted palette and wintry landscapes enhance the film's oppressive mood, underlining the stifling nature of the community and the personal isolation Bill experiences. The film's silence, paired with sparse dialogue, echoes the weight of Bill's internal conflict, but it risks losing the viewer in its deliberate pace. At times, it feels like the film asks too much patience from its audience without offering enough clarity or insight.

While the film's restraint in explanation might be seen as a deliberate choice to emphasize the emotional toll of silence and unspoken truths, it may also alienate viewers seeking more clarity. The lack of a broader exploration of the abuse at the convent at the heart of the story ultimately leaves the film feeling like a half-told tale, a meditation on guilt and failure without a satisfying understanding of the world it inhabits.

In conclusion, Small Things Like These is a beautiful, haunting film that succeeds in capturing the sadness and beauty of its characters' lives, but it fails to fully engage with the larger issues it presents. For all its elegance and quiet power, it feels like it stops just short of saying what needs to be said. It is stylish, slow, and silent - but perhaps, in the end, a little too silent.

My eyes were absolutely glued to the screen from beginning to end while watching this film.

The amount of scenes with zero dialogue that have so much atmosphere and emotion is just incredible.

Cillian Murphy is absolutely amazing in this film, as I expected he would be. But the emotion he shows in this film and the way he acts through his body language and facial expressions is just superb. He really is one of the best actors of this generation.

Emily Watson is formidable as the Mother Superior. The tension she brings to each scene is fantastic. It really shows how horrible some of the nuns were in those times.

This film had a perfect runtime of 1 hour and 45 minutes. It even felt longer because of how engrossed I was in it.

The score and the cinematography were both so simple, yet so effective. They both really added a lot to the film and just gave it the finishing touches it needed.

Overall, this film was absolutely amazing and it was a very enjoyable watch. I would love to get more films like this in the future. It was also great to learn more about the history of my country, even if it is the darker side of it.

"If you want to get on in life, there's things you have to ignore, so you can keep on."

• Eileen Furlong.

Cillian Murphy is always a celebration for the large and small screen. This time he travels several decades back, to the eighties in Dublin. He is a coal seller, that keeps his house warm and sells coal for other houses and places to keep them warm in Ireland's cold winter. His five daughters and wife are the apple of his eyes and he would do anything for them.

Until...one day he stumbles into a situation in a monastery, which hosts young catholic girls, sometime against their will, that keeps his confused and torn between his will of normality and his conscience. The catholic church is being criticized here in a way that one can easily be reminded with the classis "The Magdalene Sisters".

During several segments of the movie the past keeps reminding Bill with his childhood traumas. He is described as a generous and simple guy, that wants only to earn money to keep his family on track with food in their bellies, fire in the fireplace and off course proper education, but he still has great virtues and gentle heart, as far as it goes to other people, that their daily suffering doesn't go unnoticed.

It's a slow burner, that is directed with a fine and gentle hand and mindset. It has a lot of criticism, as mentioned, of the church and cynical use of religion to oppress the common folks. On the other side it has a lot of humanity, love and care in it. It feels long, but it is a straight forward film, that catches the essence of the era and state of mind of these days.

I haven't felt always the strong connection between the flashbacks to current plot developments, but all helped to better build the protagonist character and to better understands him and his motivation. Murphy's character has been built well, from a script perspective and also thanks to an enormous performance from Murphy himself.

...and then I was waiting for it to end.

An extremely slow paced no context kind of a story with no beginning and barely any development. I guess you had to have read the book first, because the film felt like it was a chapter taken out of the middle of it. So much was happening, yet so little made sense. The boy Cillian's character has an interaction with, that we never go back to again throughout the film, the throwbacks to his childhood which I guess were supposed to help us understand his character's struggles. The dialogs between him and his wife which seemed to be leading nowhere and have little connection to the story. The last 10 minutes helped make an emotional connection and some sort of storyline development, but there is so much more that could have been done to show the horrific things going on back in that time.

What Director Tim Mielants brings is a meditative, yet, compelling and bleak portray of corruption behind the Catholic Church and the infamous Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, splashed with a good sense of atmospheric setting and an enrich performance from Cillian Murphy.

The approach on the writing, tone, and themes are sensitive but approached appropriately, without feeling overdramatic nor out of place. Creating the sense of realism of the time period and challenges of it's topic. The camerawork, production designs and direction helps establish it's setting. As said, Murphy's performance is good but Emily Watson is just as good as always.

It's simple narrative, yet powerful theme and subject carries out it's bleakness and the true nature of human nature out is well-explored. Including good soundtrack, dialogue, and an interesting character from Murphy.

Some criticisms have been said that Murphy's character wasn't interesting and the movie should have focused on the Magdalene Laundries and the girls. I understand where the perspectives are coming from but, the idea from an ordinary outsider, seeing the dark sides of the reality and seeing the truth is also an interesting perspective. We are providing what ordinary people are able to see and how it shapes them.

Overall, a great movie.

Almost to teeth "flawless" movie. It has an idea and form and sticks to it. There is nothing in the movie you really can complain about. Cillian delivers top Oscar contender performance, which is fragile, yet strong. Cinematography and writing complement each other perfectly and editing treats us viewers as capable.

It is only when you zoom out, the movie or dare I say us viewers and the world somewhat "falls" apart. The globalized world that is only living in the next 20 seconds, isn't anymore as sympathetic as it use to be. We have pressing matters of abuse and misery all over us, we seem to be fixated to every misery there are. This has problematic effect on many of us. The horrors in this movie seem so small to all the horrors out there right now, more so because they are in ancient times to this 20 second humanity.

I think this movie bizarrely shows us that our global system has had bad effect on our attention onto closest around us and the community we live in.

7.5/10.

Growing up in Ireland in the 80s I was brought up a long a long way away from this, but there was a place close to me where there was a home run by the nuns, no that I am in my 50s, seeing this film makes me think back to those times when you would here of a girl from one of those places, and the whispers. Little did I know and this film has brought me right back to that. Powerful.

Cillian's performance was so understated and all the other characters, including the children were incredible.

The stories of the Magdalene Laundries is a dark and terrible part of Irish History, films like this give us a glimpse of the pain and suffering.

This sombre insightful drama takes us back to an earlier Ireland, a long way from the young vibrant and open society of today, an Ireland (well, to be accurate, Irish republic) where the Catholic Church dominated life culture and even politics, as it had done since the 1920s. Ordinary folk were either brainwashed into submission or intimidated into repressed poverty stricken acceptance of the status quo. It really does seem that it largely was like that.

We've seen other films, in particular The Magdalene Laundry, about the practice of sending young women who became pregnant 'out of wedlock' to convents where their babies were taken away at birth, and the women 'enslaved' into the Laundry, ostracised by all. Cruel and vindictive, this went on until 1998!

Cillian Murphy plays an ordinary family man with five daughters in country Ireland who runs a coal supply firm, its 1985. He sees without really understanding all that's wrong around him and how young women are treated. When delivering to a convent he chances upon its cruelties and he recalls his own difficult early life, and tries to take action in what is a severely compliant almost closed society.

It's sombre, low key, and it took me time to understand, but this slow burn approach pays off as I gradually understood how through the central character we experience his world and realise just how wrong so much of it all seems. It's heart rending stuff, truthful, and dark, particularly the malevolent portrayal of the nuns, with a great turn by Emily Watson. The film will not cheer you up, but it's an important historical reflection on a world thankfully has now disappeared.

The trailer was really good

The fact that Eileen Walsh was also in the brilliant & moving 10/10 The Magdalene Sisters from 2002 was a great omen & should have had the makings of a great piece of drama albeit sadly based on real events

Likewise Cillan Murphy never fails to deliver

But it ended with me feeling cheated by what ought to have been an exceptional piece of drama

Having returned from Wexford in Ireland yesterday I was looking forward to seeing this although knowing it was a dark subject

The story was told through flashbacks & Cillan's character Billy Furlong a coal merchant in 1980s Ireland struggling with his inner demons & childhood upbringing, the problem however was that it slowed the pace down too much to the point that you didn't become as engrossed as you ought to have been

I never give spoilers as you know so won't reveal the plot but most of the story is confined by the workings of what's going on in Billy's mind & it doesn't involve the audience enough , this should have & could have been a lot better

It didn't feel like the 1980s it felt older & he looked a lot older than his character was & then I started to notice small things ( ironic as it's the title ) like the basin he washed his hands in had plastic pipe connectors of a much later era! Then his lorry looked like it came from the era of his childhood

At the end of the day what let it down was poor storytelling

The material was there it was just badly executed

Pad. A 4/10.

If Oppenheimer felt like the grandest possible stage for Cillian Murphy as an acting giant, Small Things Like These feels like a showcase of his ability to tell the most intricate emotions with the subtlest of facial expressions. It's a very quiet film and for that I found it to be very powerful in large part because of all of the things you don't see play out on screen. It's very effective in how it transports you into this time period and speaking as someone who doesn't really know anything about this part of history I found it to be very authentic. As I said, it's very quiet as a film with a minimal of flashy visuals or dialogue and while that often worked I couldn't help but feel it affected the pacing somewhat. For a mere 90 minute movie it felt longer which in and off itself is not a bad thing but I suppose after the slow build up I think I wanted just a little bit more out of the ending. Small Things Like These feels like a passion project through and through and one that uses the simplest of cinematic techniques to tell its story to great effect. I could see some people finding it too emotionally distant but for me I kept wanting to explore the emotions it was trying to convey. It's not a film I'll rewatch in a hurry but also not one that'll leave my mind anytime soon.

This Irish drama is heartfelt, somber, outrageous and angry in its depiction of brutal, bullish nuns controlling the lives of poor innocent young girls who have got into ' trouble' that we really wanted to like it more.

Partly the reason is that the audience is never given enough backstory to Bill's character that he becomes opaque; never really building up much sympathy that he needs in order for the ' happy ending' to work.

Throughout the film he just stares off into space-in bed with his wife, at the kitchen table with his five daughters(!), in his coal truck, in the pub, in the barber chair. We get it!

Rather than these endless shots maybe writer Enda Walsh and director Tim Mielants needed to build up a solid backstory into why Bill feels so troubled. Did his mother have him out of wedlock? Was Ned his father? Who was Mrs Walters? These are important people that shaped Bill's childhood and adult life. It doesn't need to be Lynchian in what is NOT said.

If Bill is the main protagonist and we see the events in his eyes there needs to be succinct past experiences especially if it involved the Magdalene nuns.

Cillian Murphy is, of course, excellent and he commands the film. The gaze he does shows his haunted quality; it's just there is too much of it.

I'm aware of the history of the Magdalene Laundries, behind this film, but that's not why I went to see it - I'd seen the trailer and was intrigued.

This is not a joyous film. It is a slow, intense look at a social issue, from one man's perspective. Set against a background of his own childhood and the moral pressures inherited from that. It's sensitive and thoughtful, although slightly simplistic/black and white - although difficult to be too nuanced, given the subject matter and the need to portray things coherently in a general release film.

Cillian Murphy, Eileen Walsh and Emily Watson, elevate the film above the mundane. The acting is excellent, although low key. One criticism - there's possibly too little dialogue and too many intense looks - for Murphy it's virtually all he does, but he does it very well

As I said above, the dialogue is sparse, so the script has to be, and is, well written. The Direction is suitably subtle and light touch. The acting, similarly, is understated.

I suppose I should have been touched more than I was by this film, but I have a hard heart.

Nevertheless it is an excellent film, and worth seeing if you're up for a bit serious cinema.

Seriously this movie has zero storyline and just meanders from scene to scene with the main character staring into space or moving coal.

It's a fantastic option if your prescription sleeping tablets have ran out or if you're generally an insomniac. Would also suit those with masochistic tendencies as you'd have to hate yourself to sit through this preponderance of pain.

If I had the option I would give this no stars but alas I must so I give it only one.

I would avoid this at all cost and seek out another film with a bit more flesh on its bones as this one has skant meat to offer the viewer. Short on story, dialogue and interest it is an empty vessel with no content on which to catch one's thirst.