The act of looking away from the pain of others in favour of having an easier, more comfortable life for yourself can be relatively undemanding. Through the character of Bill Furlong, played by Cillian Murphy, the film ‘Small Things Like These’ feels like an attempt at persuasion against such complacency.
In his first project since the Oscar-winning role in Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy is unsurprisingly exceptional—distressed, sombre and haunted by his traumatic past in a way that is palpable. His performance assumes centrality in this slow-burn drama and his contribution to the film and the way he brings the character is Bill Furlong to life is simply irreplaceable.
Page to Screen Adaptation
Adapted from the novella of the same name, authored by Claire Keegan—the story is set in the cold winter of 1985 and follows a kind-hearted, perturbed man as he confronts the daunting misery that abounds in the dysfunctional Roman Catholic society of his small Irish town, that had been hiding in plain sight but deliberately ignored. The transformative nature of kindness amidst collective apathy and discouraging complicity lies at the heart of the story.
The book is understated, quiet and hence complicated to adapt for screen in a way that would do the original text justice and yet director Tim Mielants accomplishes it seamlessly with the kind of filmmaking that captures the essence of the story’s subtlety, tenderness and unease. As the credits roll, this synthesis of fiction and non-fiction based on a very recent and brutal Irish history will sits heavy on the heart.
A History of Gendered Abuse
For about two centuries, women in Ireland were confined to abusive workhouses governed by the Catholic church often as a punishment for having sex outside of marriage. These workhouses were named the Magdalene Laundries which kept these “fallen women” where they were made to perform excruciating unpaid labour and kept isolated from society against their will, while their children were stolen from them.
Orphaned girls, abused women, sex workers and unmarried mothers were all kept segregated from their community at large and made to work in conditions akin to prisons which often ended up being fatal for them. Until 1993, when unmarked graves containing the corpses of 155 women were found in the backyard of one of the institutions, the Magdalene Laundries system remained largely unquestioned. These slave camps were one of the numerous instances of organised religion’s crimes against women in history marked by tears, agony and mass graves.
