Small Things Like These (2024) is directed by Tim Mielants and stars Cillian Murphy, Eileen Walsh, Emily Watson, Zara Devlin, Clare Dunne, Patrick Ryan, Peter Claffey, Ian O’Reilly, Helen Behan, and Michelle Fairley. This film is based on the novel by Claire Keegan and follows Bill Furlong (Murphy), a committed father in 1985 Ireland who begins to discover dark secrets being kept by a local covenant of nuns. As his anger and suspicions grow, he begins to reconsider his traumatic childhood and what it truly means to be a Christian man. This eventually drives Bill to action, even if it means shunning his tight-knit community in the process. 

Murphy follows up his Oscar-winning turn in Oppenheimer (2023) with an equally strong (though smaller-scale) performance. Naturally, I doubt the academy will recognize it, but I’ve never really considered them to be all that perceptive. It’s an extremely subdued performance that swells with consistently building tension until it eventually boils over. This script is smart to portray “doing the right thing’ as a complicated endeavor that the protagonist struggles with. He’s forced to make the difficult choice between believing what others tell him is right vs. believing what he knows in his heart is just. Because his struggle is truly a difficult one, we’re ok with the fact that he spends most of the movie silently considering his options.

There’s a unique element here that paints Irish Catholic nuns from this era as being akin to mobsters. It adds a feeling of cinematic intrigue to a film in a genre that often has a difficult time doing so. The conflicts here aren’t necessarily a matter of life or death, but the level of tension the movie sustains comes pretty close. There’s also a nice element of mystery sewn throughout which keeps the audience compelled even when they don’t fully understand what’s going on. 

This film comes off as totally necessary in the sense that it feels like a story that hasn’t yet been told in cinema (maybe it has. I’m versed, but no expert). It’s a historical account of a particular hardship that thousands of women faced during that time, but it never feels on-the-nose or preachy. These stories say all they need to say with their natural subtext, so why shove them further down the viewer’s throat? Small Things Like These plays things straight and therefore its messages are twice as effective. In my opinion, less is more when it comes to themes. They should always be prevalent, but rarely the star of the show.

In the context of the modern era, I think this is an important film for men to watch specifically. Yes, the film’s conflicts revolve around the mistreatment of women, but the main character arc is Bill Furlong’s struggle with what it means to be a man and father within a nation that often sees its women as lesser. Strong men during this time aren’t such because of how they exercise their physical or social power over women, they’re strong because of how they use this power to protect/help the opposite sex.

Overall, this is an extremely well-acted and subdued thriller that uses its methodical pace to full effect. On top of this, the final moments never feel the need to sacrifice the film’s established realism to deliver a satisfying ending. It’s not in your face, but it succeeds on both a thematic level as well as a story level. That being said, the movie is almost entirely carried by Murphy’s fantastic performance as well as some strong turns from the supporting cast. If you’re looking for a realistic and emotionally effective thriller with fantastic acting, check this one out. B+