With her 2010 short story "Foster," Irish author Claire Keegan established herself as a great prose writer, evoking deep emotion with great economy. The brilliant 2022 feature film "The Quiet Girl" brought this slim work to the screen with beautiful precision, while retaining the simplicity and elegance of the original. Keegan's work is revived once again, the inspiration for Small Things Like These, the 2021 film adaptation of her novel of the same name, directed by Tim Meelants and starring Cillian Murphy. The film examines the Magdalene laundries of Ireland and the caring men's response to them and their discontent. The film is a worthy successor to Keegan's previous film adaptations.
Murphy plays Bill Furlong, a Catholic coal merchant living in New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland. A husband and father to five daughters, Bill is a respected member of his community, but he didn't start out that way. As we learn over the course of the show, he's the illegitimate son of a teenage mother who was lucky enough to get a home from a Protestant employer, a financially independent widower, and he didn't care what his neighbours thought. These circumstances from his childhood shaped Bill, making him more likely to help those in need than others. Even his wife, Eileen (Eileen Walsh, Made in Italy), finds him a little too mature.
Despite this, her life is not unhappy, even though Bill works hard and long hours. The year is 1985, and his daughters are getting a good education thanks to the local nuns. Christmas is fast approaching, but Bill and Eileen seem to have nothing to celebrate other than another great holiday. That is, until Bill discovers something, or someone, at the local convent that deeply upsets him. He may have built his business by keeping a low profile, but sometimes a conscientious man just can't look away.
Mierant carefully builds tension as one disturbingly quiet scene after another unfolds, punctuated by flashbacks to Bill's younger years. The film was shot on location in County Wexford, and the film's color palette switches between drab browns, blues, and yellows depending on whether it's day (often early morning or dusk), night, or indoors, depending on the sense of emotional claustrophobia that can suffocate. Bill would have been better off if he hadn't screamed. Since he is essentially incapable of such an act, he must find another way. The leaps into the past are more brightly lit, but these moments also reveal the roots of Bill's suppressed grief.
The Irish Catholic Church (represented here by Sister Mary, the convent superior) has many sins to atone for, including its treatment of unmarried pregnant women, whom it has abused for decades. The film available on Afdah tv.
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