Small Things Like These

I could watch Murphy stare at a wall watching paint dry for 2 hours and I'd still buy a ticket.

Here, as Bill Furlong, he conveys a sadness that is rarely seen or understood by the people close to him. But we (the audience) can see it's there.

I won't go into the story that much. Honestly, there's not much there. But that doesn't mean it's a bad movie. It just means that it's a simple story. But one that is very well written, beautifully shot (The whole time, I believed I was in Ireland during the eighties) and incredibly well acted.

The Magdelene laundries were a real thing up until 1996, when the last one closed. Unmarried, pregnant teens were sent to monasteries to give birth and lose their child to forced adoption. All the while, they were abused as cheap labor by the nuns who were running the laundries. Sometimes, they were also physically abused and mistreated. It has left a mark on the soul of the country.

Eileen Walsh, who plays Ms. Furlong, also starred in the Magdalene sister, a movie from 2003. Coincidence or not: I suggest that you check it out because it's a perfect bookend to this gem of a movie.

In 1985 devoted father of 5 Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) discovers disturbing secrets kept by the local convent and uncovers shocking truths of his own.

As my title says, this is a very tricky film to review. It's a heartfelt project which raises issues that cut deep in the religious country of Ireland. The Magdalene Institutions on which it is based, took in women and girls who were pregnant outside of marriage, sex workers, orphans, or just women who did not conform to social expectations of that time. They were typically worked hard and kept in austere circumstances, but the truth of the "Magdalene Laundries" run by nuns of the Roman Catholic faith, came out only when the buried remains of hundreds of women were found. And yet for decades there was talk about these inhuman institutions, run almost like workhouses or even prison camps by the nuns. And no-one did anything as the church was too deeply embedded in society. In the film Bill is warned not to say anything about what he witnessed at the convent, "because the nuns have fingers in everywhere, and if word got out it would backfire on you." And that's how it actually was, we know now. The nuns were evil, brutal women who sought not to rehabilitate, but exact vengeance on women they saw as unfit.

Now, the film reveals a little of that, but only a little. The manner in which it is filmed actually does not help it's message. Cillian Murphy spends a lot of the time in his scenes looking at the ground, or having flashbacks, and it is so much time that he is silent that I almost turned it off. I get that they were trying to offer some trauma from his childhood that explained why he intervened with the convent, but the message was almost lost in the long spans of...frankly...tedious nothingness. There was only 1 girl who we saw being mistreated so it would be easy to say, well all the other ones were treated much better. We now know they were not, but the film doesn't show that. They have taken an arty sort of approach which promotes the film, not the subject of the film.

That's why I think the film is tricky to review. On one hand it's beautiful cinema, albeit with too many, too-long pauses and introspective moments. On the other it is bringing...poorly...a deeply worrying and saddening message about the Magdalene Laundries. So for cinematic I would rate it one way, for the message it was trying to get across I would rate it much less, for the wasted 20 minutes on pauses that were unnecessary, and some flashbacks which being honest, I didn't even understand properly, I would rate it even less again.

I enjoyed it on some level but I think when you review a film of true events that caused trauma to countless thousands of young women over 70 years, you have a responsibility to make it the very best it can be. Front of stage, all of the time, should not be a coalman and his emotions, it should be the women who suffered. I finally decided on a score of 6, but I think I am rating it higher than I feel it should be, because the story...the true story of the Magdalene women, needs to be heard. I would love to see a better version.

It's unbelievable to know that this story takes place in 1985 and went on until 1997. Cillian Murphy's breathtaking performance takes you through the struggles from his past and the struggles in his present until the character of Bill Furlong can't take it any more. Filmed up close and very personal. You can hear every breath and feel his pain. Beautifully portrait by Tim Mielants. He is so close to all the characters, you can almost feel their hearts beat.

The story is one of the many sad examples of the influence of the churches in Europe until recently. Seeing this film at the Film Fest Gent gave it an extra dimension with Cillian Murphy introducing the film and wishing everyone a pleasant screening in Dutch. From the screen, due to his work on PB7 as we speak.

A friend of mine used to own a big gay bar in Dublin, and I recall being in it the day that marriage was legalised in Eire. One of the women celebrating was telling us of her childhood at the hands of the nuns in the 1970s. It was a ghastly story of women who hadn't an ounce of compassion between them all, and this film picks up that cudgel and swings it squarely at what it is little better than a religious equivalent of a Dickensian workhouse. The story is told from the perspective of local coal merchant "Bill" (Cillian Murphy) who lives with his wife and five daughters in a small town in Co. Wexford. Nobody has much money and some are reduced to gathering wood from the forest floor to heat their homes. By comparison, his family are quite well off and with Christmas looming all are anticipating a good family time. He supplies the local convent-cum-orphanage where the unwed girls of the community are deposited when they get in the family way, and it's here that he encounters a young lass locked in the coal shed. Freezing and terrified, he wonders how she got herself trapped in there - and that's where the story starts to focus on not just the inhumanity that prevailed, but on the internecine, web-like, tendrils of a church that brooked no resistance or interference. If you want a "peaceable life" then you'd best leave well alone. Can he, though? He is frequently reminded of his own childhood. One of tragedy, kindness, an hot water bottle and a jigsaw puzzle. "Bill" is a troubled man who has much to mull over as his conscience refuses to accept the societal compromises even his wife (Eileen Walsh) might prefer he adopt in the face of what he has now witnessed. This is definitely a less-is-more film, with an effective paucity of dialogue and a sense of oppressiveness that frequently overwhelms with it's simplicity. The setting demonstrates a degree of menace way more poignantly than any horror film, but horror this is - and an illustration of cruelty in it's most devastatingly subtle form. Murphy shines here, his performance allows his character to take us with him as we all observe a scenario unfold that might not have been out of place in 1885 - but in 1985? Not an easy watch, but well worth ninety minutes of your time.

This sombre insightful drama takes us back to an earlier Ireland, a long way from the young vibrant and open society of today, an Ireland (well, to be accurate, Irish republic) where the Catholic Church dominated life culture and even politics, as it had done since the 1920s. Ordinary folk were either brainwashed into submission or intimidated into repressed poverty stricken acceptance of the status quo. It really does seem that it largely was like that.

We've seen other films, in particular The Magdalene Laundry, about the practice of sending young women who became pregnant 'out of wedlock' to convents where their babies were taken away at birth, and the women 'enslaved' into the Laundry, ostracised by all. Cruel and vindictive, this went on until 1998!

Cillian Murphy plays an ordinary family man with five daughters in country Ireland who runs a coal supply firm, its 1985. He sees without really understanding all that's wrong around him and how young women are treated. When delivering to a convent he chances upon its cruelties and he recalls his own difficult early life, and tries to take action in what is a severely compliant almost closed society.

It's sombre, low key, and it took me time to understand, but this slow burn approach pays off as I gradually understood how through the central character we experience his world and realise just how wrong so much of it all seems. It's heart rending stuff, truthful, and dark, particularly the malevolent portrayal of the nuns, with a great turn by Emily Watson. The film will not cheer you up, but it's an important historical reflection on a world thankfully has now disappeared.