In 1985 devoted father Bill Furlong discovers disturbing secrets kept by the local convent and uncovers shocking truths of his own.

After his Oscar winning performance in ‘Oppenheimer’, Cillian Murphy’s next movie is a lot lower key with the Irish historical drama ‘Small Things Like These’. Set in a small town in County Wexford, it tells the story of a quiet and unassuming coal merchant who is conflicted when he witnesses the abuse of a pregnant teenage girl at the local convent. Torn between wanting to help and the implications that doing so would have on his family and his own daughters, his challenge is brought into sharper focus by flashbacks to his own troubled childhood.

Many will have heard about the Magdalene laundries in Ireland (many may have seen Peter Mullan’s ‘The Magdalene Sisters’), which were convents run by nuns where ‘fallen’ women (i.e. sex workers or women who got pregnant out of wedlock) were sent and confined, and in many cases suffered horrific abuse with their children ripped away from them. In Ireland at this time, the Roman Catholic church and state were so closely intertwined that to speak out could have grave implications on your own family and that led to a culture of secrecy where a blind eye was turned to the horrors going on. In ‘Small Things Like These’, this is depicted in an understated way when Cillian Murphy’s Bill comes upon a girl locked up in a coal shed in freezing conditions, and is then subtly threatened by the convent’s Mother Superior (an electric Emily Watson) to keep quiet or risk his youngest daughters not being able to go the local school (which is also run by the convent).

Cillian Murphy is terrific in the central role in a performance that relies heavily on facial expressions and internalised emotions, while I thought Emily Watson was brilliantly manipulative and frightening in what is undoubtedly the movie’s best scene when she confronts Bill and hides her cruelty behind niceties. Besides these performances though, I felt the movie was a little inert dramatically, and I spent a large part of the runtime waiting for more to happen. That’s not to say every movie needs to be full blooded, but ‘Small Things Like These’ barely even flickers into life and I wanted more from a premise that has a lot of promise.

‘Small Things Like These’ is worth seeing for Cillian Murphy and Emily Watson’s gripping performances, as well as its important subject matter, but overall I felt the movie never quite grabbed hold and as a result it lacked the power and potency that it could have had.

Rating: 3/5

Directed By: Tim Mielants

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Eileen Walsh, Michelle Fairley, Emily Watson, Clare Dunne, Helen Behan, Louis Kirwan, Liadán Dunlea, Agnes O’Casey, Mark McKenna and Zara Devlin

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt27196021/