"If you want to get on in this life, there are things you have to ignore..."
One of the best Irish books is now one of the best Irish films.
Like Claire Keegan's source novel, this masterful adaptation feels like it will see us all out and go on to be cherished by future generations. It's as important a portal to a particular place and time, in this case New Ross, Co Wexford in December 1985, as any you care to mention from Irish cinema. It also delivers the Christmas message in its purest form.
In his finest performance on home ground, Cillian Murphy plays Bill Furlong, the fuel merchant who reaches a look-in-the-mirror moment of truth as festive bells chime. While children write letters to Santa, the adults are distracting themselves with bonhomie and busyness, knowing full well of another world on their doorstep - and doing their damnedest to forget it. In December, of all times.
Born to a single mother who died young, Bill has felt like an outsider in his hometown all his life. A father of five daughters, he is taciturn like many a man of his generation but also epitomises the idea that kindness is love in plain clothing. Both these facets of his personality will be tested in the days and nights ahead - the tumult coming after Bill delivers coal to the local Magdalene Laundry. It's a regular run, but something has changed within him.
"It was finding all the people that you know you can trust but are also the best at what they do," so said Cillian Murphy when he spoke to RTÉ Entertainment about making Small Things Like These, the first project from his new production company Big Things Films. Job done. The director is Peaky Blinders' Belgian helmer-turned-new-local-hero Tim Mielants; Murphy has enlisted Disco Pigs playwright Enda Walsh for the screenplay and has finally reunited with his Disco Pigs co-star Eileen Walsh after all these years. The wait was worth it. Then there's Emily Watson, whose central scene opposite Murphy plays like a film all of its own, and Helen Behan, whose exhortation towards the end is a great example of an actor making the most of their moment, delivering a summation of what was Irish society and its are-you-sure-now? subsonics in the process.
In front of and behind the camera, everyone shines here, but most important of all, they do justice to all the stories that have informed this one. Don't miss it.
