Small pictures like these pack a punch more powerful than puerile blockbuster bluster.
SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE examines the little moments and the momentous of a life that seems mundane, measured and unobtrusive.
Small things like towing the line, not rocking the boat, maintaining the status quo, aided big things like the Holocaust, as each small cog of ignorance, indifference, blind eye acquiescence moves the wheel of subjugation to a bully system of domination and dehumanisation.
SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE stars Cillian Murphy as Tom Furlong, a coal carrier in a small Irish town circa 1985.
One of his clients in this fairly close knit community is the local convent, run by Mother Superior, Sister Mary. The convent is supposed to provide sanctuary and succour to unwed mothers but as Tom discovers, the convent is closer to a concentration camp with the nuns behaving like Nazis, enslaving the girls as laundry workers and general domestics.
As the local publican confides, “The nuns have fingers in every pie”, and Tom’s interference in their operations could jeopardise his younger daughters’ education and instigate ostracism of his family in the town.
SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE through nuance and subtlety bring big things like moral humility and moral assurance into sharp, fine grained focus.
Courageous and achingly sad, SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE is a finely textured film with superb performances from Murphy, Eileen Walsh as his wife, Eileen, and Emily Watson as his nun nemesis, Sister Mary.
Harrowing and haunting, SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE hones in on the hypocrisy of the Church and the male skewed sexism of society at large.
Directed by Tim Mielants from a script by Enda Walsh and Claire Keegan, on whose novel the film is based, SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE shows that small things done in the name of mercy and decency can lead to better, bigger things indeed.
