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Small Things Like These

What Critics Say

2024

Cillian Murphy, Eileen Walsh, Michelle Fairley, Emily Watson ...

Drama It is 1985 in the run-up to Christmas in a small town in County Wexford, Ireland. Bill Furlong toils as a coal merchant to support himself, his wife and his five daughters. Early one morning while out delivering coal at the local convent, he makes a discovery that forces him to confront his past and the complicit silence of a town controlled by the Catholic Church. Based on the novel of the same name by Claire Keegan.

	Media	Author	Review
		Guy Lodge Variety	"It’s Murphy’s exquisitely pained performance, unclenching by fine degrees into something like grace, that gives 'Small Things Like These' its eventual, fist-in-the-gut power"
		Tim Robey Telegraph	"Cillian Murphy mesmerises (...) The Oscar nominee brings a moving vulnerability and hypnotic grace to this adaptation of Claire Keegan’s short story (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"
		Rachel Pronger IndieWire	"Cillian Murphy gives another staggering performance in profound Irish gem (...) Based on Claire Keegan’s novella of the same name, Tim Mielants' film is surprisingly understated and yet still full of dramatic power"
		David Rooney The Hollywood Reporter	"Cillian Murphy is superb (...) It’s subtle but resonant, intimate but emotionally expansive and at every step crisply unsentimental"
		Kevin Maher The Times	"Cillian Murphy impresses again (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"
		Rory O'Connor The Film Stage	"Murphy gives a characteristically tender, interior performance as a man burdened with a conscious even heavier than his considerable knitwear"
		Olivia Popp Cineuropa	"Half-mystery, half-character study, Mielants' newest film succeeds more in the former than the latter"
		Pat Brown Slant	"The at times meticulous realism of Tim Mielant’s film eventually gives way to hokey drama (...) Rating: ★★½ (out of 4)"
		Rafaela Sales Ross The Playlist	"Cillian Murphy anchors chillingly effective religious drama"
		Lou Thomas NME	"Another powerful Cillian Murphy performance (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"
		Ben Croll The Wrap	"As the pensive film untangles these questions related to a very specific milieu, the quiet register encourages our own reflections on the very moral concerns time and circumstance have made unavoidable in the present day each and every day"
		James Mottram Radio Times	"Cillian Murphy is superb in subtle drama (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"
		Jonathan Romney Screendaily	"Playwright and screenwriter Enda Walsh offers a largely faithful adaptation of Keegan’s slim but highy crafted text (...) And Murphy is compelling throughout, all the more so because of his character’s absolute reserve"
		Stephanie Bunbury Deadline	"The small things now add up to a trauma narrative, with Murphy’s soft features diligently registering 50 shades of pain. He’s cracking at every seam"
		Stephen A Russell Time Out Australia	"It’s a profound performance by Cillian Murphy that burns with tragic urgency (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"
		Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"I was so rapt, so caught up in this film, that I wasn't aware that it was going to be the ending until the screen faded to black. It is an absorbing, committed drama (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"

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