Small Things Like These Parent Guide

It only takes a second to upend a man’s life.

Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) is content with his lot. He’s the town coalman and a married father to five daughters. Life might not be easy, but it’s good. Then one day, when Bill is delivering coal to the local convent, he witnesses a young woman being forced inside by her mother, screaming as she’s pushed through the doors. Bill is a kind man, sensitive and aware of other people’s pain. This young woman’s plight sends Bill spiraling back through his memory and the trauma of his own childhood.

Small Things Like These is based on the scandal of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries also known as Magdalene Asylums. Run by Catholic nuns, these institutions were primarily designed to house unwed pregnant mothers (although other women were institutionalized for “promiscuity”, being incest survivors, or mental illness, among other things). The women were kept on thin rations, required to work long hours in for-profit laundries, and forced to surrender their babies for adoption. Maternal and infant death rates were shockingly high. When information about the deaths circulated in the 1990s, the asylums were forced to close.

Unfortunately for Bill, he’s living in 1980s Ireland, and the Magdalen laundries are still operating, thanks to cultural strictures around illegitimacy and the political and economic power of the nuns’ orders. As Bill slowly opens up to his wife about what’s troubling him, she assures him that he has no responsibility to intervene, and “If you want to get on in this life, there are things you’ve got to ignore.” The local pub owner also offers her own bit of unsolicited advice, “Do the sensible thing. Look after your family and your business.”

Those conversations are at the heart of this film. It’s ostensibly a story about the Catholic church’s abuse of these women and its exercise of political and economic power. But what movie is really about is the silent war that goes on in a man’s mind. Bill grapples with the scars of his childhood, his sense of responsibility for the welfare of others, and his need to protect his livelihood and his daughters’ futures. None of these issues are easy, and Bill starts to come apart under the strain. Bill’s struggles are a stark reminder that it’s impossible to isolate evil. The abuse may take place behind the locked convent doors, but by their silent acceptance and refusal to confront the nuns, the townsfolk become complicit and are thereby diminished.

The biggest problem with this film is that Bill’s silent internal battle is a bit too silent. I don’t mind movies without action; character dramas that are driven by conversation are usually my favorites. But there’s not a whole lot of conversation in this film. I give Cillian Murphy full marks for projecting Bill’s struggle through his eyes and body language, but I would have enjoyed more talk to balance out all the heavily amplified breathing.

Other complaints are minimal. The sound mixing is sub-optimal so this film is probably more enjoyable on a streaming platform where you can turn on the subtitles. But everything else is, as the Irish would say, grand. Cillian Murphy’s performance is Oscar-worthy, the script is spare – probably too spare at the end where a less abrupt conclusion would be welcome. It’s a story that needed telling and kudos to Murphy for doing so with heart.