Agnes O'Casey, Aoife Gaffney, Berlin International Film Festival, Cillian Murphy, drama, Emily Watson, Faye Brazil, film festivals, Ireland, Liadan Dunlea, movies, Rachel Lynch, reviews, Sarah Morris, Small Things Like These, Tim Mielants, Zara Devlin
November 8, 2024
by Carla Hay
Directed by Tim Mielants
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1985, with some to the 1950s, in New Ross, Ireland, the dramatic film “Small Things Like These” (based on the novel of the same name) features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A coal delivery driver, who was raised in a convent, has his past come back to haunt him when he discovers dark secrets about the convent.
Culture Audience: “Small Things Like These” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and dramas abut religion having major influences in people’s lives.
“Small Things Like These” is a worthy adaptation of the novel of the same name. This meditative drama has slow pacing but many moments of hard-hitting realities about how a convent’s dark secrets affect generations of people in a small Irish community. “Small Things Like These” had its world premiere at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival.
Directed by Tim Mielants and written by Edna Walsh, “Small Things Like These” is adapted from Claire Keegan’s 2020 novel of the same name. It’s an intimate story that speaks to larger issues of abuse in religious institutions that often control or dictate how people live. Although the movie has fictional characters, their experiences are what untold numbers of people have experienced in real life.
“Small Things Like These” takes place primarily in 1985, in the small rural town of New Ross, Ireland. (The movie was filmed in the Irish cities of Wexford, Wicklow and Dublin.) Bill Furlong (played by Cillian Murphy, one of the producers of “Small Things Like These”) is a happily married father of five daughters, ranging from primary school age to high school age. His wife Eileen Furlong (played by Eileen Walsh) is a kind and optimistic homemaker.
Bill works as a coal delivery driver. He is a well-respected member of the community and he’s known as a “regular guy” who lives an unassuming, low-key life. Later, the coal stains that he has to wash off when he comes home from work later become symbolic of the stains of bad memories from hs past that he tries to wash from his psyche.
Bill doesn’t live too far from the Good Shepherd Convent, where he was raised as a child. The Catholic nuns who operate the convent often have teenage girls living there to help them with their work as unpaid employees. The girls who are sent to the convent are considered “wayward” girls who end up at the convent as punishment or simply because the girls have nowhere else to go.
The Catholic Church and this convent are powerfully influential in this community for many reasons, including being the main source of school education. Bill’s eldest daughter Kathleen (played by Liadán Dunlea) has been educated by the convent’s nuns at the local high school. Bill’s other daughters—Joan Furlong (played by Agnes O’Casey), Sheila Furlong (played by Rachel Lynch), Grace Furlong (played by Aoife Gaffney) and Loretta Furlong (played by Faye Brazil)—also plan to attend the same high school.
One day, Bill is outside when he sees a teenage girl named Sarah Redmond (played by Zara Devlin) arrive at the convent with her unnamed mother (played by Sarah Morris), who is practically forcing Sarah into the building. Sarah is fighting and resisting her mother every step of the way and screaming that she doesn’t want to go. Sarah is quickly taken into the building.
Bill sees Sarah again a few days later when he finds her hiding in his shed because she has run away from the convent. Bill doesn’t know what else to do but to return her to the convent, which is under the domineering rule of Sister Mary (played by Emily Watson), the convent’s mother superior, whose calm exterior masks a cruel and abusive personality. Bill can’t help but feel uneasy about Sarah’s obvious desperate unhappiness and unwillingness to live at the convent.
After witnessing these disturbing incidents with Sarah, Bill experiences a flood of memories and emotions about his own mother, whose name was Sarah Furlong (played by Agnes O’Casey), who was an unwed teenager when she had Bill. Sarah is now deceased but there are several flashbacks to when she was a teenager and in a relationship with the teen who was Bill’s biological father Ned (played by Mark McKenna). Bill also has visions of himself (played by Louis Kirwan) when he was about 9 or 10 years old.
Through conversations in the movie and these flashbacks/visions, viewers find out that Bill never knew who his biological father was when Bill was growing up. As a child, he lived for a while with a widow Mrs. Wilson (played by Michelle Fairley), most likely in a foster care situation. Bill’s mother Sarah disappeared or died under mysterious circumstances. There’s a scene where boyhood Bill asks Mrs. Wilson, “Do you think my father knows what happened?” Mrs. Wilson replies, “I don’t know.”
Bill begins to wonder what’s really going on in the convent. A local shop owner named Mrs. Kehoe (played by Helen Behan), who is knowledgeable about some of the town’s secrets, warns Bill not to be an antagonist to the people who operate the convent. “If you go making a nuisance of yourself,” she tells Bill, “you could be denying your children of an education.”
If you’ve seen enough of these types of movies, then you will be easily able to figure out how all these clues and fragmented memories add up to a horrifying truth. Murphy gives an admirably understated performance as someone thinks he’s had an uncomplicated life, but the memories that come flooding back indicate that he has had some past trauma because of his mother being an unwed teen mother in this very religious community.
Watson (who won the Best Supporting Actress Award at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival) gives an unsettling performance as Sister Mary, who is convinced that abuse can be justified in the name of religion. Sister Mary is the worst type of villain: someone who appears to be harmless but in reality causes a great deal of harm.
“Small Things Like These” is true to its title by not being a sweeping epic about people with big personalities getting justice for crimes and other wrongdoings. It’s a story about people who want to live quiet, ordinary lives and might feel overwhelmed by the scope of abuse that they know about or experience. They might not seek justice in the court system but they make a difference through small acts of kindness to people who need it the most.
Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions released “Small Things Like These” in U.S. cinemas on November 8, 2024. The movie was released in Ireland and the United Kingdom on November 1, 2024.