Small Things Like These
Uncomfortable truths surface in Tim Mielants’s Irish drama of iniquitous activities behind convent doors.
Photo by Amy Young; Image courtesy of Lionsgate.
When the release of Margo Harkin’s Stolen was announced in 2023, my first response was to doubt if it were a necessary work. That was because the subject of this piece was the Magdalene Laundries, those institutions in Ireland run by the Catholic Church for fallen women which became a national scandal. Bearing in mind that Peter Mullan had made an award-winning drama that put the focus on these homes and the horrors involved in 2002’s The Magdalene Sisters and that in 2013 it was followed by Philomena a personal drama which led into a comparable exposé and which saw Judi Dench on her finest form, I wondered what a further film could usefully add. But in the event, I was surprised and delighted to discover that Stolen was one of the best documentaries of its year and a work that had an emotional impact even stronger than those two earlier films.
Although I understood that Small Things Like These was yet another work concerned with this subject, this time around I had high expectations of it. At the Berlin International Film Festival, it had won a best supporting performance award for Emily Watson and subsequent reviews had contained huge acclaim for Cillian Murphy its lead actor. Furthermore, the film was an adaptation by Enda Walsh of a highly praised novella by Claire Keegan and I recalled that it was she who had written the piece which became that fine Irish film 2022’s The Quiet Girl. In addition to all that I gathered that the approach this time was very different thus limiting the risk of undue repetition.
Cillian Murphy was, I believe, the driving force behind getting this film made and what has resulted is a work notable for several admirable performances (they include those by Eileen Walsh and young Louis Kirwar) and one marked by the splendidly atmospheric photography of Frank van den Eeden. There can be no doubt but that the Belgian director Tim Mielants and all those involved in this film were totally committed. And yet I felt disappointed by what I saw on the screen.
Most people who seek out Small Things Like These will have heard that it is a work concerned with the Magdalene Laundries and that is something that tailors one’s expectations. However, the novel element here is to approach the subject from the viewpoint of the other inhabitants of the town where the story takes place, New Ross in County Wexford. But to do that in a feature length film offers challenges that would not have existed in the original book which consisted of a mere 128 pages. Early on in the film Murphy's character, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant, is seen in the course of his rounds witnessing by chance a distressed girl being hustled into the convent. But, rather than this leading directly into more details directly related to the expected subject matter, it proves to be the only scene connected to this issue until another girl appears and asks Bill for help some forty minutes or so into the movie. Up to that point what we are offered is a character study of Bill as the camera follows him on the job and shows his life as a husband – his wife, Eileen, is the role played by Eileen Walsh – and as a father with five children to support, all girls. Eileen points out that he seems of late to have become quiet and anxious and this is indeed established with utter conviction in Murphy’s remarkably interior performance, the facial expressions counting for even more than the words.
The scenes of Bill's home life play with great veracity but even so, as presented here at some length, what we see of his life has only limited interest. I say that not only because we are waiting to hear more about the Magdalene Laundries but because the portrait of Bill is frequently interrupted by flashbacks to his early life introduced in a manner that is piecemeal: they arrive in bits and pieces at contrived moments and often confusingly (for example, young Bill’s benefactress, a landowner named Mrs Wilson (Michelle Fairley), suddenly appears out of nowhere). The traumas of Bill's youth do emerge but not in a way that always makes immediate sense and consequently lack the power and ability to involve us deeply and catch us up in his story. One may well approve the avoidance of melodrama but the film is so understated in tone that the narrative needs more grip and flow if it is to keep us engrossed with the gradual impact on Bill of events more hinted at than shown.
Once Bill is drawn more directly into awareness of how girls are being treated and comes face-to-face with the mother superior, Sister Mary (that’s Watson's role), the film fares better. But even then, it is the confrontation scene between them that stands out above the rest. Here Sister Mary brings pressure to bear on Bill not to interfere in any way by underlining the fact that she can be pivotal in what education his younger daughters will receive. Watson handles this scene with wonderful precision and subtlety capturing the ruthlessness without ever playing it up too grossly. If only the rest of the film could have been as effective as this scene. But, alas, even the finale is less than satisfying in that it seems to offer a positive outcome but does so by breaking off the narrative at a point when what could well follow might prove disastrous for Bill yet ignoring that fact. Of course, the film’s heart is in the right place and its portrait of a society under pressure and choosing for the most part, Eileen included, to look away provides an echo of Germany and the Holocaust that is all too convincing. But, not having read the acclaimed book, I can only imagine that its format including its short length allowed the tale to be told far more effectively.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Eileen Walsh, Clare Dunne, Amy De Bhrún, Louis Kirwar, Michelle Fairley, Mark McKenna, Agnes O’Casey, Zara Devlin, Liadan Dunlea, Abby Fitz, Helen Behan, and with Emily Watson.
Dir Tim Mielants, Pro Cillian Murphy, Alan Moloney, Matt Damon, Drew Vinton and Catherine Magee, Screenplay Enda Walsh, from the book by Claire Keegan, Ph Frank van den Eeden, Pro Des Paki Smith, Ed Alain Dessauvage, Music Senjan Jansen, Costumes Alison McCosh.
Artists Equity/Screen Ireland/Big Things/Wilder Content-Lionsgate.
98 mins. Ireland/Belgium/USA. 2024. UK Rel: 1 November 2024. US Rel: 8 November 2024. Cert. 12A.
