• Director: Tim Mielants
• Screenwriter: Enda Walsh
• Cast: Cillian Murphy, Eileen Walsh, Michelle Fairley, Emily Watson, Clare Dunne, Helen Behan
• Cinematography: Frank van den Eeden
• Editing: Alain Dessauvage
• Score: Senjan Jansen
• Genre: Historical drama
• Runtime: 98 minutes

Based on Claire Keegan’s Orwell Prize-winning novel, ‘Small Things like These‘ deals with a dirty big stain on Ireland’s history – the Magdalene laundries. These institutions, run by the church, took in ‘fallen women’ (such as unmarried mothers or prostitutes) and effectively held them prisoner, forcing them to work till the point of collapse. Unbelievably, this form of modern slavery was still occurring until 1998 (almost the 21st century!), the year the last laundry closed down.

The film looks at events from an outsider’s perspective, and a male one too, which I found a curious choice. Coal merchant Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy, in his first role post-Oscars win) is preparing for Christmas with his wife and five daughters when he discovers a young woman cowering in the shed next to the local convent. By alerting the nuns to her existence, he’s pretty much led her into captivity. Consequently, Bill silently wrestles with feelings of guilt – did he do the right thing by her? She’ll have a roof over her head, be fed and ‘looked after’. He knows what the nuns are up to – everybody does. It’s an open secret. But nobody dares challenge them as they’re too influential in the community. Bill is also plagued by flashbacks of his mother’s death when he was a boy – she too was a ‘fallen women’ (an unmarried mother) yet she was taken in by a kind-hearted lady (Michelle Fairley), allowing her to raise her son comfortably.

Murphy gives a superbly haunted performance; you can see the trauma in his eyes, while Emily Watson is unnerving as the Mother Superior of the convent. It’s bleak and hard-hitting. I feel as though Ireland is only just beginning to process this shameful chapter in its past. An overdue dedication to the 56,000 women (and the babies) lost to the Magdalene laundries between 1922 and 1998 appears at the end while the sound of crows cawing and children giggling plays over the closing credits, adding a certain chill.

My rating: 7 / 10