Movies, Arts

‘Small Things Like These’ is a Quiet and Poignant Reflection on One of Ireland’s Little Known Historical Truths

★★★★☆

Small Things Like These is an Irish drama film based on the historical fiction novel of the same name written by Claire Keegan. The film, directed by Tim Mielants, is an intimate look into the lives of young women instituted in Magdalene laundries in Ireland, and those whose lives intersect with these victims. 

Small Things Like These stars Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy as Bill Furlong, alongside lesser-known Irish actors. The film follows Furlong, an Irish coal merchant and hard-working, loving patriarch to his family, through both his past and his present. 

The first part of the film introduces the audience to Furlong’s past and present family dynamics. In his childhood, Furlong’s father left him, and his mother died when he was still young. Furlong was then taken in by an older woman in the community. In the present day, Furlong is happily married with a number of school-age daughters, yet he still seems to be haunted by his past.

The film takes a turn, however, when Furlong observes a young girl being forced into a convent by her mother. He becomes curious, and wanders into the convent, where he encounters the sounds of crying babies. One girl in the convent begs him to save her and help her escape. 

This event haunts Furlong, and later, when setting off  to work earlier than usual, he finds a pregnant teenage girl locked in the shed next to the nunnery. Shocked, he brings her back into the convent where the girl, Sarah (Zara Devlin), is forced by the nuns to lie about why she was in the shed. 

What ensues after is a quest for Furlong to evade the nunnery’s blackmail and save Sarah from the convent. The film ends formally with a dedication to those who were institutionalized in the Magdalene laundries. 

Murphy’s performance truly elevates Small Things Like These. His subdued, controlled acting brings forth both the emotions that Furlong was going through over the course of the film and the forces that compel him to suppress these emotions. 

Furthermore, Murphy garnered a large amount of attention for the film by starring in and producing it. It would not have been possible for this movie to gain the amount of traction or publicity that it did without Murphy’s name connected to it. By showing his support, Murphy stands in solidarity with the victims that Small Things Like These pays homage to, and he amplifies their voices even further. 

Small Things Like These is a beautiful, touching look into the lives of those who were victimized by these Magdalene laundries. These laundries were typically convents that typically preyed on young, unwed, and vulnerable women who engaged in premarital sex, were sexually abused, or were engaged in prostitution. 

The laundries forced the girls to perform free labor and often abused them physically and verbally, isolating them from the outside world. Women trapped in the Magdalene laundries often lived the rest of their lives in these convents. This film pays homage to these women, whose stories often go untold. 

November 24, 2024

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