Small Things Like These

Small Things Like These

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

This review may contain spoilers.

Cillian Murphy shows here just how versatile of an actor he is. He's known for his quiet brooding, but in the subtleties that he finds his characters. It's his posture and his gaze, which in Small Things Like These, are small, locked away, hunched. He's a frightened boy, a quiet caged animal filled with fear rather than anger. Bill is a man who is torn inside, who is trapped by his want to do good and the environment which won't allow it. There are certain shots of Cillian where his fear is right there on the surface while still being locked away behind his eyes. He's nervous in a crowd of his own friends, distant and lost in thought at the dinner table with his family. It's fascinating to watch his performance here and how he embodies the story fully through his acting.

The filmmakers are fully in sync with this, and we mostly see the story through windows and doors, faces distorted by glass and condensation and rain. Bill is trapped, but so are the townspeople even if they're not willing to openly admit it. We see the town and its occupants in their prison, unable to speak out, to act, for fear of being ostracised by the church who control almost everything. The fine balance that has been facilitated by those in power should not and will not be upset. Through these distortions and shadows, along with frames that purposefully throw us off kilter, we are give this feeling innately. Show don't tell. Or even better, feel don't show. Sound design and music also plays a very important part in all of this. Sound is a way to create subjectivity and perspective. This is Bill's story, we see through his eyes. We hear what he hears and feel what he feels. As all of our senses, hearing is incredibly subjective and specific to us, prone to being changed through our perception of the world. Most notably is Bill's breathing, which is a constant throughout the film. His laboured breathing engulfs all other sounds and pulls us into his head. It's his burden, his life, his concern that we hear through his breathing. Just under the surface the fear and pain bubbles. The sound is also directed at us, muffled in parts, enhanced in others. Bill's family around him laughing and talking as he barely hears them, the sharp, dungeon like sounds of the laundry, a shovel hitting coal jolting us into the next scene. This is my favourite type of filmmaking: subjective, pointed, intimate, all felt through texture and atmosphere.

The additions that the film makes to the source novel are welcome here. Bill's backstory of being born out of wedlock is effective though it takes a minute to figure out that we are flashing back to his memories. The film illustrates Bill's fears as a father of five girls and a carer for his family and those he sees as in need. His view of the town and of the poverty creeping in is effective and tragic. Responsibility, morality, right and wrong. The themes are nicely placed throughout the film and build to a crescendo which breaks with the ending of the book but is understandably less pessimistic as it needs to appeal to a movie going audience. Small Things Like These is defined by its subtlety and its light touch to such a difficult and cold story.

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