Small Things Like These (Mielants, 2024)

It’s the small things we do, they’re what impact us most. Aren’t they?

You do not expect what you would have expected when watching Tim Mielants’ Small Things Like These (2024) – based on the novel of the same name by Claire Keegan. However, this is perhaps what Keegan has in mind when creating her story. Just after playing American J. Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023), Cillian Murphy returns to his Irish roots as Bill Furlong in this slow-paced film dedicated to “the women and children who suffered time in the Magdalene laundries.” A tale about how complicity and silence allow for cruelty in the world to endure, Small Things Like These shows a very different Ireland. There can be such deep meaning in the small things and though not the background of the tale, the importance small choices make on the world is imbued within.

It is 1985 in New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland and Bill Furlong is a coal merchant who is the financial support for his wife and five young girls. While his wife, Eileen (Eileen Walsh), takes care of the home, Bill is out day-to-day delivering the coal from his mine, with the help of his eldest daughter Kathleen (Liadán Dunlea) operating the books. Doing their best to survive, all is well until one day when Bill comes across a young woman, Sarah (Zara Devlin), in distress at the Magdalene convent for women without homes. This discovery leads to Bill uncovering disturbing secrets kept by the sisters of the local Catholic church, led by Sister Mary (Emily Watson). He then must confront his slightly traumatizing past and the conniving silence of this small Irish town.

After having seen the trailer for Small Things Like These it leaves the viewer feeling as though we know where the film will go, and perhaps have a bit of pace to it. That is not the case, however. Small Things Like These does not have a dominant plot that draws the attention of the audience in a major way, the climax of the film is shown subtly and slowly. While it seems as though Bill lives an average life in this time period, the audience is shown such dark imagery of this Irish town. Vivid close-ups of Bill’s face and hands covered in coal add to the distinction of his role as a coal miner. Each step throughout his day, including the tediousness of the intense scrubbing of his hands when he returns home from a long day of work, is shown to the audience. 

Not much occurs in the way of typical entertainment, Small Things Like These feels more like a carefully crafted piece of art with an important message woven through. The audience is shown small moments, Small Things, that Bill goes through that build up his character. Within the first 20 minutes, he gives a local boy change to help him and his family over the holidays. Even though the Furlong’s might not have everything, they are better off than most. Building up Bill’s character is an important plot element and one that encompasses the whole of Small Things Like These. 

The use of flashback is strong in Small Things Like These. When the audience is first shown young Bill, William at the time (Louis Kirwan), one could be perplexed as to who the character is. But with further continuation into the plot, it is revealed that these sequences occur as present-day Bill begins to deal with his past. Confusing at first, the flashbacks eventually work well into the storyline and the editing used to show specifically how and when Bill experiences them himself, helping the audience dive deep into the intricacies of the character. As Bill learns about the atrocities of the church, he recalls how he was taken in by Mrs. Wilson (Michelle Fairley). When it becomes apparent to Bill that he and his family are lucky, there is one scene when he scrubs and scrubs and scrubs his hands to clean them of the coal and we are shown flashes of him as a child running to his mother after she collapses. The intensity created by the editing and the moments chosen to edit between creates a connection to Bill and an explanation for his future choices. 

The audience is kept in suspense, and we are not sure if Bill will take matters into his own hands, but when he does it brings the moral of the film to a close. No matter how one might feel about the pace of the film, while it is slow, there is an important message. Right in the title, the little choices we make are the ones that can have the greatest impact on others. Bill learns this early on in life, and throughout the film we see how generous he truly is. By the end, we are not surprised by his decision. He changed the trajectory of one person’s life, just like one person changed the trajectory of his. 

Small Things Like These shows that darkness can endure when we remain silent and how the control of a Church can cause such things. A dark portrayal of Ireland with brilliant acting by Cillian Murphy, beautiful shots and thought-provoking editing, brings the idea of Small Things Like These to the big screen. 

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Photo credits to The Guardian, Empire and Flicks.