Small Things Like These

'Small Things Like These' is absorbing.

I basically got exactly what I expected from this one. It's a slow burn, quiet film featuring a stellar, if somewhat understated, Cillian Murphy performance. The pacing is spot on and the story is undoubtedly engrossing, it's one that holds plenty of emotion behind it.

It does conclude rather abruptly, I in fact overheard someone nearby remark "that can't be it" when the cut to black happens. That isn't, for me anyway, a bad thing though. Again, I kinda anticipated it being a movie that would simply tell its tale and end, which is certainly what it does.

It is very much Murphy that stands out from these 98 minutes, but credit is still due for the likes of Eileen Walsh, Emily Watson and Zara D...

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 ...

When it comes to minimalism in filmmaking, theres deftly deliberate understatement, which can be a decidedly valuable asset, and then theres cryptic obfuscation, which frequently leaves viewers scratching their heads. And, when it comes to this fourth feature outing from director Tim Mielants, the line between the two is undeniably and confusingly razor thin, a tale thats so exceedingly nuanced and purposely restrained that one often wonders exactly what its trying to say. Set in 1985, the film tells the story of Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy), a hard-working Irish coal merchant struggling to make ends meet for his wife (Eileen Walsh) and five daughters. As a soft-spoken, kind-hearted soul, he readily helps others in need, a compassionate st...