On Sunday 17 November 2024, Ciné Utopia hosted a special event to celebrate European Arthouse Cinema Day, with the premier of the film Small Things Like These by Tim Mielants.
Prior to the screening to a 200+ full house in a collaboration with the British & Irish Film Festival Luxembourg, a reception was held with a spread of both savoury and sweet snacks provided by Home from Home.
Directed by Tim Mielants (Patrick (2019); Wil (2023); Peaky Blinders (tv series, 2016)) and starring Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer (2023); Inception (2010); Dunkirk (2017); Peaky Blinders (tv series, 2013-22)), Emily Watson (Anna Karenina (2012); Breaking the Waves (1996); The Book Thief (2013); Red Dragon (2002)), Clare Dunne (Herself (2020); Kathleen is Here (2024); Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)) and Eileen Walsh (The Magdalene Sisters (2002); Eden (2008); Made in Italy (2020)).
Drama; 98 mins: 12+.
Based on the book by Claire Keegan, it is set in the mid 1980s in New Ross, Co Wexford, Ireland.
Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) is a coal merchant and runs his own business; he is also a family man, happily married to Eileen (Eileen Walsh) with five children, all girls, the eldest of whom is in her last year of school. They live in a small terraced house, modestly, but have some comforts including a colour television.
In the run up to Christmas he is out on his rounds, delivering to the nuns, when he sees them taking in a young woman who is distressed, being dropped off her mother: at that time in history, the Magdalene Sisters took in unmarried women who were pregnant as society frowned upon children being born outside marriage.
He delivers a number of bags of coal but needs to return to bring peat briquettes, whereupon Sister Mary (Emily Watson) and Sister Carmel (Clare Dunne) tell him he will get paid.
Bill is a gentle and quiet soul; what he has seen at the convent prey on his mind which wanders back to his own youth. He and his mother lived with an elderly spinster where his mother was the housekeeper; nothing is mentioned about his father.
A brooding film in which there is not a huge amount of dialogue; Cillian Murphy is in most scenes (apart from his flashbacks) and owns the screen from the opening scenes. A wonderful and sensitive portrayal of difficult times that were not too far back in recent history.
Small Things Like These is expected to go on general release in Luxembourg at Ciné Utopia from Wednesday.
