Nonew films on RaiPlay not to be missed? It is available in streaming from today Little things like this with Cillian Murphy, the perfect anti-star. Not very flashy, but capable of giving intense interpretations, always with great transport. After the Oscar won for Oppenheimeryou could expect to see him again in a blockbuster, or in a comfortable film. And instead the Irish actor chose to throw yourself into an even more difficult challengetaking part in a film that is small only in size.
Little things like this on RaiPlay: streaming film plot, cast, Cillian Murphy
Based on the novel of the same name by Claire Keegan, the film is set in Ireland in 1985. Bill Furlong is a coal trader and father of five daughters. He lives a quiet life until, in the days before Christmas, he meets some pregnant girls in difficulty. Accompanying them back to the convent where they reside, he confronts the ruthless Sister Mary, director of the institute.
Thus she discovers the inhuman conditions in which they are forced to live, deciding to fight against the injustice of an entire community, who prefers to remain silent, while their difficult past comes back to be heard.
The cast
To play the protagonist of Little things like thiswe find Cillian Murphy. After this experience, the actor reunited with director Tim Mielants in Steveavailable on Netflix. In the role of Sister Mary, there is instead Emily Watson, famous Miss Potter which we will see again from February onwards Hamnet by Chloé Zhao. For her performance in the film, the actress has won the Silver Bear for best supporting performance at the Berlin Film Festival. The cast is completed by Eileen Walsh (Eileen Furlong), Michelle Fairley (Mrs. Wilson), Clare Dunne (Sister Carmel), Helen Behan (Mrs. Kehoe).
The review of Little things like this
Little things like this fits into the long British tradition, from theater to cinema, of dramas that open up from an intimate and everyday dimension to a universal one. The leaden Irish skies outline an oppressive and claustrophobic atmosphere, also present in the interiors. The director focuses on small details, such as Bill’s hands dirty with soot or the scenes of the family at the table, to introduce the viewer to the complicated reality of the protagonists, dominated by poverty and repression.
The fulcrum of the work is to bring attention to historical facts that would seem to date back to a distant era but are instead very recent, in the wake of the previous Magdalene. Providing a fuse of hope is the protagonist played by Cillian Murphy, on whose face the scars of a life full of hardships emerge, but in which the ardor never fails. A lock pick who reveals the distortions of society, Bill becomes the embodiment of an entire category of human beings capable of not looking away and helping others.
Cillian Murphy and director Tim Mielants on the set of “Little Things Like These” (Rai)
The true story that inspired Little things like this
THEThe film is dedicated to the victims of the Magdalene Houses, women’s institutions in existence from 1785 until the threshold of the new millennium. These welcomed girls who were orphans or considered immoral, such as prostitutes or unmarried girls, with the aim of rehabilitating them. They soon end up in the hands of the Catholic Church which forces the young women, held against their will for long periods, to work in laundries, through strict rules and severe measures.
The story, which has passed in silence over the centuries, only began to interest public opinion at the end of the 1990s, when the remains of 155 hospitalized patients were found, buried in anonymous graves inside a property. The last Magdalene House in Ireland closed in 1996. Even today there is no exact statistic of how many women were hosted overall.