Although Cillian Murphy read the acclaimed Irish book “Small Things Like These” during the Covid-19 lockdown and was “floored by it,” it was the Oscar winner’s wife, Yvonne McGuinness, who suggested he turn the story of one man’s stand against church abuse into a movie.
Murphy produces and stars in an adaptation of Claire Keegan’s Booker Prize-shortlisted novel involving one of Ireland’s Magdalene laundries, workhouses run by the Catholic Church, where unmarried, pregnant women were interned and forced to give birth in secret.
Even though the book “stayed with me for a long time,” the Irish actor admitted to CNN that he didn’t initially think of it as a potential film project.
But after his wife’s encouragement, Murphy reached out to previous collaborators like screenwriter and playwright Enda Walsh and Peaky Blinders director Tim Mielants, enlisting their help on a subject he calls “a collective trauma” that Irish people “are still processing.”
Murphy plays coal merchant Bill Furlong, father of five girls in a small Irish town in the 1980s.
“We meet him at this point in his life where he’s experiencing some major emotional turmoil. If feels like he’s going through some sort of breakdown,” Murphy told CNN.
“And then this oppressive atmosphere in the town and the control that the Church exerts over the whole of society. It’s all coming to a head on this particular couple of days before Christmas.”
Also coming to a head is the future of the five Furlong girls, whose carefree energy is in stark contrast to the misery of the young women Bill catches sight of in the laundry attached to the local convent, as he delivers coal. Entering the building, he sees them scrubbing floors and toiling in the laundry; one begs him to help her escape as a nun hurries him away. In the distance a baby cries.
When Bill finds one of these girls abandoned in the convent’s coal shed, the mother superior, played by Emily Watson, makes it clear to him how quickly she can take away the prized education the nuns give to his daughters. She gives him an envelope of cash to help with Christmas. And to ensure his silence.
“Small Things Like These” may appear to be a small, quiet film, especially when compared to Murphy’s Oscar-winning blockbuster “Oppenheimer,” but the film’s hero is on an epic moral journey. And there is nothing quiet about the film’s portrayal of misogyny.
Despite having the feel of a period movie, this Irish story has not yet been consigned to the past.
Earlier this year the government of Ireland opened a mother and baby institutions redress scheme. In Northern Ireland consultations on a public enquiry into mother and baby homes have begun. Many Irish people are still trying to comprehend the reality of what happened to tens of thousands of women and their babies.
Last week, the Vatican presented its first annual report on child protection initiatives to tackle another major scandal, that of clerical sexual abuse. It found parts of the Roman Catholic Church are still failing to ensure clerical sexual abuse is reported adequately.
This is the first film for Murphy’s production company, “Big Things” and is executive produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
“Small Things Like These” releases in theaters in the US on Friday and is already out in cinemas in the UK.
