Current:Home > ContactCillian Murphy takes on Catholic Church secrets in new movie 'Small Things Like These' -LegacyCapital
Cillian Murphy takes on Catholic Church secrets in new movie 'Small Things Like These'
View
Date:2025-04-12 18:37:10
As the title character in "Oppenheimer," Cillian Murphy was at the center of existential questions about death and destiny as physicists raced to develop the atomic bomb in a quest to end World War II.
In his latest film, "Small Things Like These" (in theaters Friday), Murphy is at war with himself.
Based on the Orwell Prize-winning novel inspired by true events, "Small Things" is set in 1980s Ireland at a time when the Catholic Church wields absolute power over the faithful. When taciturn coal and timber merchant Bill Furlong (Murphy) discovers a sobbing girl being held captive by nuns because she's pregnant and unmarried, he is caught between a desire to help and a fear of being shunned by his community.
"This is a very familiar type to me, the silent Irish male who is a deep thinker," says Murphy, 48, himself a thoughtful, introspective presence. "In the novel, it says Bill walks with his eyes toward the ground and he finds it difficult to make eye contact with people. I know that type of Irishman."
Join our Watch Party! Sign up to receive USA TODAY's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
Murphy says serendipity was involved in bringing "Small Things" to the big screen. He had been looking for a project that would allow him to collaborate with Belgian director Tim Mielants, whom he had met while filming his popular Netflix series "Peaky Blinders."
When Murphy's wife Yvonne McGuinness suggested the 2021 Claire Keegan book, a resonant bestseller, he was stunned to find the rights available.
"It was a miracle in a way, and meant to be," says Murphy. "It had already become a modern classic in Ireland, everyone it seems had read it. But we knew if we were going to do it, it had to have the same space and tone the book has. It needed to be a quiet film."
That it is. If you wonder what it feels like to live in a small Irish village that almost seems stuck in time, surrounded by good people who are all cowed by local Catholic officials, watch "Small Things." Murphy's character is painfully reserved, and the actor's restrained performance captures how the church kept locals silent as they hid pregnant girls brought to them by embarrassed parents.
Director Mielants also felt a personal pull to the story, although he declines to elaborate. "I will say there's a theme of grief that comes back to me a lot, and I like investigating that," he says. "In a way, it's like going through my own personal trauma, beat by beat, together with Cillian. With the Catholic Church, there's always this sense that if you're silent, you're complicit."
Mielants adds that Belgian Catholic officials have also been accused of coercing women to give up their children for adoption. But the practice in Ireland has gained the most notoriety as revelations suggested many young women lived and died within the confines of what essentially was their church imprisonment.
What were the Magdalene Laundries?
In 1993, a mass grave was discovered on the site of a convent laundry just north of Dublin, touching off a scandal now known as the Magdalene Laundries. For more than 100 years, so-called fallen women were brought to church officials across the country to be rehabilitated through forced labor, with their children given up for adoption.
In many such Irish towns, locals who suspected anything largely stayed mum. Mielants says he was eager to have his star "explore the depth that silence can have. You get the denial, the anger, the paranoia and the acceptance. You see the tip of that iceberg, but it's what's underneath that is so layered."
Murphy brings an intensity to this role that recalls equally striking performances from fellow Irish actors, including Barry Keoghan ("The Banshees of Inisherin"), Saoirse Ronan ("Lady Bird"), Colin Farrell ("In Bruges") and, of course, three-time Oscar winner, Daniel Day-Lewis ("Lincoln").
So what's in the Irish water that turns out such stars?
Murphy just laughs. "I get asked that often, and I don't have an answer," he says softly. But he does have an explanation of sorts.
"Have you been to a small pub in a small town in Ireland? If you have, you know that it's a place where people are there just telling stories, and who we are as a people is talking through story," he says. "I'm sure that has to do with the church, with being colonized, with the hardships of the famine and emigration.
"I don't know the answer to your question. But I do know we're good at story."
veryGood! (5)
Related
- Juan Soto to be introduced by Mets at Citi Field after striking record $765 million, 15
- Morocco topples Egypt 6-0 to win Olympic men’s soccer bronze medal
- Nina Dobrev Details Struggle With Depression After Bike Accident
- Taylor Swift cancels Vienna Eras tour concerts after two arrested in alleged terror plot
- Civic engagement nonprofits say democracy needs support in between big elections. Do funders agree?
- Police Weigh in on Taylor Swift's London Concerts After Alleged Terror Attack Plot Foiled in Vienna
- 'It Ends with Us': All the major changes between the book and Blake Lively movie
- Cash App to award $15M to users in security breach settlement: How to file a claim
- Opinion: Gianni Infantino, FIFA sell souls and 2034 World Cup for Saudi Arabia's billions
- University of Georgia panel upholds sanctions for 6 students over Israel-Hamas war protest
Ranking
- Romantasy reigns on spicy BookTok: Recommendations from the internet’s favorite genre
- Rain, wind from Tropical Storm Debby wipes out day 1 of Wyndham Championship
- Man charged in 1977 strangulations of three Southern California women after DNA investigation
- US government will loan $1.45 billion to help a South Korean firm build a solar plant in Georgia
- 3 years after the NFL added a 17th game, the push for an 18th gets stronger
- Handlers help raise half-sister patas monkeys born weeks apart at an upstate New York zoo
- Dead woman found entangled in baggage machinery at Chicago airport
- 3 Denver officers fired for joking about going to migrant shelters for target practice
Recommendation
The GOP and Kansas’ Democratic governor ousted targeted lawmakers in the state’s primary
Montana sheriff says 28-year-old cold case slaying solved
France beats Germany 73-69 to advance to Olympic men’s basketball gold medal game
The leader of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement reflects on a year since the Lahaina fire
Working Well: When holidays present rude customers, taking breaks and the high road preserve peace
Who Is Olympian Raven Saunders: All About the Masked Shot Put Star
Jelly Roll’s Wife Bunnie XO Faced “Death Scare” After Misdiagnosed Aneurysm
A powerful quake hits off Japan’s coast, causing minor injuries but prompting new concerns