THE only complaint I could make about Small Things Like These was that I wished I could have spent a few more hours with the characters. 

There was not a wasted moment on the screen, not a word out of place, nor a gesture made by any performer that didn’t communicate.

As I emerged from the cinema, I could hear the same feeling expressed by innumerable others. 

We had all been transported to Wexford Country, Ireland, in the lead-up to Christmas 1985, and been taken into the internal life of Bill Furlough (Cillian Murphy), a hardworking, stoical collier. 

There are subtle references to high literature and other cultural allusions, but at its heart this is a simple story of what has formed a good man in a hypocritical society.

Mid-80s Ireland was struck by economic hardship. 

In this town a barefoot child is reduced to drinking milk that a householder has left out for a cat. 

Another poverty-stricken child is collecting sticks for winter fuel. 

It is Bill Furlough, the tight-lipped, labouring man who is the Good King Wenceslas.

Bill’s village is small, insular and conservative, over which the local convent towers like a gothic fortress. 

The Catholic Church does not just physically impose itself, its tentacles pry into every nook and cranny of town culture. 

A difficult private conversation with the head nun might, surprisingly, get referred to out of the blue by one of your neighbours who was not present, with friendly advice to be careful. 

This breeds the attitude that if you want to get by in life there are things that you should just ignore, and that counsel might come from the least expected directions. 

What must be ignored are the oppressive conditions of the girls working in the convent laundry, girls who have had children outside of marriage and are effectively condemned to toil as slaves.

But Bill Furlough is not like the other townsfolk. 

As Christmas approaches, he muses on his childhood and its hardships that have moulded his character. 

The audience shares these moments of reflection, about which he keeps silent. 

Others have no understanding of his inner turmoil.

There are a couple of references to Charles Dickens’ writings, so this can be seen as a sort of Christmas Carol in reverse.

Instead of a heartless man finding salvation at Christmas, here is a family man dealing with matters that are far more complex. 

Bill discovers something that he cannot ignore when he makes an unexpectedly early coal delivery to the convent.

At Christmas Mass the congregation repeats the response to Psalm 145, about the Lord’s compassion. 

But unlike the rest of the believers, Bill considers the words deeply. 

And so, he is drawn reluctantly towards a momentous decision.

While it deals with great questions of human integrity and conflict, Small Things Like These contains no melodrama. 

Its most terrifying moment is an icily-spoken conversation, its most powerful moment is a human smile. 

That smile is a gift to the audience and a challenge for us all to live up to.

Small Things Like These
Directed by Tim Mielants
Starring Cillian Murphy,
Eileen Walsh, Michelle Fairley,
Clare Dunne, Helen Behan,
Emily Watson

by BARRY HEALY