The film was Cillian Murphy’s first after winning the Oscar for Oppenheimer.
Prime Video has just added Small Things Like These, the extraordinarily powerful 2024 Irish drama starring Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer)
An adaptation of the acclaimed novella of the same name by Claire Keegan (whose story Foster was the basis for the Oscar-nominated An Cailín Ciúin), the movie is set in 1985 in a small Wexford town in the run-up to Christmas.
Murphy plays Bill Furlong, a coal merchant working hard to support his wife, Eileen (Eileen Walsh) and five daughters.
While out doing his coal deliveries early one morning, Bill discovers something at the local convent that shakes him to his very core, causing him to wrestle with both his conscience and his past.
As the quiet family man makes efforts to raise his concerns about the revelation, he realises the extent of the power the Catholic Church has over his community.
Written by Enda Walsh (Hunger), directed by Tim Mielants (Peaky Blinders) and produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting), Small Things Like These is a notably quiet drama (for example, Cillian Murphy’s lead character has very few lines).
Yet, it’s this quietness that gives the film its immense power. Mielants and Walsh do stunning work evoking the oppressive, stifling air of a community reluctant to stand up and do the right thing out of fear.
And while Bill doesn’t have a lot of dialogue, it works brilliantly for the character, someone who struggles to express himself but has intense emotions lurking behind his eyes – a quality Murphy somehow is effortlessly able to convey.
Because of this, it is completely gripping and hypnotic to watch Bill wrestle with his big decision.
It helps too that Small Things Like These has a great supporting cast, also including Clare Dunne (Kin), Helen Behan (The Virtues), Michelle Fairley (Game of Thrones) and an incredible Emily Watson (Chernobyl), with the latter playing the subtly sinister Mother Superior of the convent.
You can read some other rave reviews for the Irish drama below:
Chicago Sun-Times: “With Cillian Murphy’s quiet, almost small and yet grand performance carrying the story every step of the way, Small Things Like These is quite possibly the best movie I’ve seen so far this year.”
Empire: “A deliberate film that uses small moments to examine one of the great questions of our time: how good people let bad things happen, and how we might push back against the dark. ”
Mark Kermode: “I suspect it may be too low-key for people… but it is a film that whispers its story to you, and I found it very moving.”
RogerEbert.com: “[Murphy’s] is a marvel of a performance, extremely expressive and yet deeply inward-looking.”
San Jose Mercury News: “It is Murphy’s sensitive and impeccable performance and Bill’s weathered countenance and those small yet significant gestures that make Small Things Like These such a quietly major film about extending a helping hand for those in need.”
How to watch Small Things Like These
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Small Things Like This is streaming in Ireland and the UK on Prime Video.
