Small Things Like These

Small Things Like These takes place over Christmas in 1985, when devoted father and coal merchant Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) discovers startling secrets kept by the convent in his town, along with some shocking truths of his own. The film reveals truths about Ireland’s Magdalene laundries — horrific asylums run by Roman Catholic institutions from the 1820s until 1996, ostensibly to reform “fallen young women.” Adapted from the Booker Prize nominated novel by Claire Keegan.

I was so rapt, so caught up in this film, that I wasn’t aware that it was going to be the ending until the screen faded to black. It is an absorbing, committed drama. – Guardian

It’s subtle but resonant, intimate but emotionally expansive and at every step crisply unsentimental. – Hollywood Reporter