Movie number 29 of 2025
The Movie: Small Things Like These
The Cinema: The Deckchair Cinema, Darwin
Stars: 5
I’ve already reviewed this movie. I saw it a couple of months ago in Melbourne and loved it then, just as I loved it now. My friend who lives up here suggested it, and being a few months since I’ve seen it, I was happy to come along to. It was lovely to catch up with her as well.
The movie was just as good on the second viewing. Based on Claire Keegan's novella of the same name, it's the story of a simple man who finds himself standing up for what's right. Cillian Murphy is excellent as Bill, a man with a history which appears buried. He is a family man - a man with a wife and five daughters. A man who becomes at odds with the local convent.
This is a film about understatement. Nothing is said outright, yet every small emotion crosses Murphy's face with clarity. Nothing is said. The crease in his brow and his vacant stare say everything.
On the second watch I picked up a couple of things. I was wandering how they could put Murphy's cheekbones to good use - they're sharp enough to cut glass.
Equally, Emily Watson is terrifying as the Reverend Mother. She's the woman that's the basis of millions of nightmares. She is not a woman of God. She out for herself and sees Bill as a fly to swatted. With his knowledge of what is going on inside the convent, she buys him off in no uncertain terms.
Yet Bill remains a man of principle.
If you haven't read Claire Keegan's works, get to the library/bookshop/ website and look at this master of fiction's novellas. She is amazing.
If you haven't caught the other movie made from Keegan's works - hunt out The Quiet Girl. It's as good as this, if not better.
If you want to learn more about the Church sponsored laundry services run by the nuns and staffed with unwed mothers and "wayward" girls, hunt out The Magdalene Sisters. Hard but essential viewing.
Talking to my friend, she asked when the movie was set. "1950s?" she asked.
"1980s," I replied. "Come on Eileen came out in 1982. Second-year high school."
"Gawd!"
When the dedication at the end of the movie showed on the screen, dedicating it to the 56,000 girls and women who were pressed into working at the laundries, you want to cry.
It's a great film for so many reasons.
But the best of all, there is something magical about sitting out under the sky, watching the geckos run across the screen as the stars inch their way into the trees.
The Deckchair Cinema is a magical place.
No comments:
Post a Comment