We find out what critics are making of this big screen adaptation of Claire Keegan’s novel, starring Cillian Murphy.
The Guardian: **** “There is something very Dickensian in this story, signalled by Bill’s boyhood ownership of David Copperfield, though with a fierce pessimism and anger that Dickens might not have favoured. And the ending is deeply strange; is it actually happening or not? 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.”
iNews: ***** “A beautifully simple story of moral courage in the face of complicity, Small Things Like These is one of the best films of the year.”
The FT: ***** “A different film might shape all this into a histrionic drama of showdowns. Small Things Like These proceeds instead with graceful storytelling and gossamer restraint — not a thriller, but thrilling.”
The Arts Desk: **** “Walsh’s script is incredibly sparse, and director Tim Mielants shoots it in such a way that the camera seems to be eavesdropping on characters, discreetly holding back, viewing people through windows, open doorways, from the far end of a corridor. The effect is a sort of haunted abstraction.”
The Telegraph: **** “The Oscar winner brings a moving vulnerability and hypnotic grace to this adaptation of Claire Keegan’s short story.”
Variety: “Walsh’s spare, sharp dialogue is alive to the conversational traps and swerves that keep small-town consciences closed if not clean, while Mielants contributes an outsider’s view, shooting the tight streets, cramped pubs and adjoining, two-up-two-down houses of New Ross with a reserve that emphasizes its exclusive closeness. But 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”
The Hollywood Reporter: “Remaining true to Keegan’s novella, Small Things Like These isn’t chiefly about the Magdalene Laundries (which also provided the backdrop to Stephen Frears’ Philomena). It’s more focused on the way shame and institutional abuse can be a festering dirty secret. Bill begins to wrestle with his conscience over whether to do something or look the other way in silence, as most people in New Ross tend to do.”
Screen Rant.com: “In many ways, Small Things Like These imagines what someone who acts upon the morals everyone else claims to have would do in this situation. It’s an ideal to some extent, but a palpable one as it underscores societal consent in horrifying situations, regardless of one individual act. Such a film, though set in the 80s, is always timely considering the never-ending atrocities in our world.”
Radio Times: **** “At the heart, of course, is Murphy, who gives a performance of great stillness and control. It’s unlikely to catch Hollywood’s eye in the way Oppenheimer has, but it’s another reminder of what a fine and nuanced actor he is.”