SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE*****

Director Tim Mielants has delivered a quiet masterpiece in this film set in early 80s Ireland and based on the equally powerful, slippery novel by Clare Keegan with a screenplay by the writer Enda Walsh (HUNGER).

It stars Cillian Murphy (OPPENHEIMER) as Bill Furlong, the owner of a small coal business who is happily married and lives in a home filled with laughter and the tumbling chaos of a gaggle of daughters.  Nonetheless, as many who have scraped their way up from poverty, he can never quite shake off that feeling of insecurity and is haunted by memories of his childhood as an illegitimate child taken in by a kindly rich woman (Michelle Fairley - Game of Thrones).

The moral crisis of the film is triggered by Bill making a delivery to a convent himself, and seeing the exploitation of the girls there, and receiving a plea for help from one distraught teenager in particular. As viewers, we are sadly all too familiar with the decades-long abuses of the Magdalene Laundries, in which the Catholic Church exploited young pregnant women. The question is: what Bill will do?

As is made clear to him by the presiding Sister (Emily Watson - chilling), going against the Church means a kind of social ostracisation - and Bill has many girls to educate in the school that they run.  And yet, and yet, he all too well knows that his own mother might well have ended up in such an institution, had she not been taken care of by her kindly employer. 

The resulting film is beautifully acted and captures the claustrophobia and oppression of a small town suffocated by the Church.  The sound design is particularly notable for depicting the twin horrors breaking in on Bill's mind - of his childhood and what is happening in the convent. Just as with the novel, this is a movie that absolutely envelopes you in a certain time and place, and stirs up emotions and provokes moral questions. It is a thing of beauty and brilliance.

SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 98 minutes. It played Berlin 2024 and was released in the USA and UK in November.

HERSELF - BFI London Film Festival 2020 - Day 2

It would be easy to be cynical about a movie like HERSELF but I found it to be a rather lovely hope-filled movie about basic human kindness in the face of personal harm and institutional carelessness. It stars screenwriter Clare Dunne as Sandra: a young single mother of two daughters, still haunted by the horrific physical marital violence she suffered. As the movie opens, Sandra leaves her husband and is forced to rely on the local government for housing.  With so many demands on its services, she's left to an endless waiting list and temporary accommodation in a hotel. On the way, we see how nasty and overpriced private sector rental accommodation is, and how hard it is for Clare to manage all her minimum wage jobs to get by.  But despite this apparently dour scenario, the movie is actually full of hope. One of the ladies that Sandra cleans for offers her a piece of land on which to build a house herself, following online instructions from a progressive architect.  The odds are steep - Sandra has only her own manual labour and little knowledge of how to apply for planning permits or cut timber - but she finds a community of friends who come together to help her. Foremost among these is the wonderfully quiet and kind Aido, played by Game of Thrones' Conleth Hill. As I said before, it might be easy to be cynical about a movie that so clearly focusses on the kindness and generosity of a diverse group of friends, but this movie is not rose-tinted. It clearly shows the nastiness of domestic violence and its profound impact not just on Sandra but on her daughters. That it does so with a quiet dignity is to its, and director Phyllida Lloyd's credit. Indeed this is perhaps the quietest and most discreet of the films I have seen directed by her. It's miles away from the pantomime noise of MAMMA MIA!  But it has a strength and power those films don't have.  When Sandra is in court contesting the custody of her children, she is peppered with insulting questions from the lawyer and judge. She finally breaks and says "ask better questions". For other actors and directors this might have been a histrionic and grandstanding big scene, but here it's suffused with anger, yes, but also weariness and disbelief.  It's all the more affecting for that. 

HERSELF has a running time of 98 minutes. The film played Sundance, San Sebastian and London 2020.