Film Review: SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE (2024): Cillian Murphy Delivers a Layered Performance in a Devastatingly Complex Dramatic Film
Small Things Like These Review
Small Things Like These (2024) Film Review, a movie directed by Tim Mielants, written by Enda Walsh and Claire Keegan and starring Cillian Murphy, Eileen Walsh, Emily Watson, Clare Dunne, Patrick Ryan, Peter Claffey, Ian O’Reilly, Helen Behan, Zara Devlin, Cillian O’Gairbhi, Giulia Doherty, Aoife Gaffney, Faye Brazil, Agnes O’Casey and Louis Kirwin.
In filmmaker Tim Mielants’ deep, thoughtful drama, Small Things Like These, Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy turns in a remarkable, multi-faceted performance. It’s a film that’s a little more than half the running time of his Academy Award-winning movie, Oppenheimer, but there are many dimensions that Murphy adds to his average, everyday character here. In the film, Murphy portrays Bill Furlong, a dad of several kids in an Irish town during the mid-1980’s. Bill is a coal merchant by trade. Small Things Like These expertly explores Murphy’s character’s dilemmas– both within himself and in the outside world with a realization that he makes about an hour or so into the film regarding the unfortunate predicament of a young girl named Sarah (well played by Zara Devlin).
Mielants’ film requires two viewings to fully grasp the excellent quality of the acting here. That’s because it’s a character study above all else. On the surface, it doesn’t feel like the plot is too complex but the more the film goes on, the more the audience will understand the underlying complications that arise in the story line which is set in both 1985 and in flashbacks to when Bill was a kid who had a struggling mother. The beginning of the movie establishes Bill as a character and as a family man. We meet his kids and learn a bit about his past. His wife is superbly played by Eileen Walsh who more than holds her own beside the Oscar-winning actor.
When Bill discovers that Sarah is pregnant in a shed freezing in the snowy town, he takes matters into the consideration of Sister Mary (the always phenomenal Emily Watson) who runs the local convent. Watson has just a few scenes here, but she plays her role with such sophistication that it’s easy to believe she thinks she’s doing the right thing when she tries to pay Bill and his wife to look the other way regarding the delicate matter at hand. Watson turns in her best supporting performance in quite some time in this very pivotal role.
Another tremendously well-done performance in this film is the one by Helen Behan as pub owner, Mrs. Kehoe, who has a scene late in the picture with Murphy that is both chilling and fascinating to watch. Behan is simply terrific in her work within the picture.
There is a lot of delicate subject matter in Small Things Like These and the film does seem like it bit off more than it could chew in its brief running time in relation to the film’s very meaty topics. However, Murphy is so mesmerizing in his role that the film works best as the story of a man who is haunted by both his past and present and feels the need to do things in his life that could erase the injustices of the past and the present.
The attention to detail that the film has on display is quite admirable. Tim Mielants has a great sense of character development which helps move the story along at a quick pace and the setting of the film is like its own character here which enhances the movie’s plausibility and watchability factors. It’s easy to feel Bill’s frustrations with the discoveries he makes in the picture. Meanwhile, the problem of not being able to get the gift that one wanted as a child and recognizing that fact later on also adds some true sadness to the scenes with the young Bill (a solid Louis Kirwin) as well as the older one who looks at a jigsaw puzzle in a store window which triggers memories of his past.
Small Things Like These can sneak up on the viewer with its tremendously effective attention to detail and very vivid characterizations. The scenes between Murphy and Walsh feel authentic and they are perfectly rendered. While Cillian Murphy adds a considerable amount of complexity and depth to his character, Emily Watson also hits it out of the park in her relatively smaller, but just as important, role as well.
Mielants has crafted an intelligent, thought-provoking drama that could have been more with the ingredients the film employs at its helm. Still, the harrowing subject matter of Small Things Like These is given a treatment which leaves more details left off-screen than shown on-screen, ultimately making the final revelations here all the more harrowing to think about. Murphy is, once again, an actor with capabilities that get more and more interesting in each project he takes on.
Rating: 7.5/10
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