Cillian Murphy Returns To The Big Screen In 'Small Things Like These'!

Cillian Murphy, the Oscar-winning star of Oppenheimer as well as the British crime drama "Peaky Blinders", is returning to the big screen with Small Things Like These, considered by critics to be one of the most relevant releases of Autumn.

The film is helmed by Belgian director Tim Mielants, who already worked with Cillian Murphy in the third season of "Peaky Blinders", and Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are financing it by the Artists Equity Studio. The movie was the first Irish film to open at the last Berlin Film Festival, and its cast is comprised mostly of Irish actors. Small Things Like These is based on the 2020 bestselling novel by the same name by the Irish writer Claire Keegan, who has won many awards, the most recent being the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction in 2022.

Cillian Murphy's character, the protagonist Bill Furlong, is a priest, coal miner, and father of 5 daughters who works to make ends meet. But it's not until he finds a very dark secret lurking that he will face his beliefs: a tranquil and everyday man's life will be turned upside down by discovering what's hidden under The Catholic Institutions of the Magdalene Laundries. This discovery confronts him with his conscience and his convictions, horrified by the cruelty and suffering that was hidden behind a theoretically charitable Catholic institution. It is, therefore, the story of an ordinary man who is forced to face an extraordinary and, at the same time, dramatic situation that devastates him.

Small Things Like These is about the real scandal of the Magdalene Laundries, a catholic institution that used to exploit women, but the most vulnerable were pregnant, prostitutes, orphans, and delinquents who were sent away because they had "failed" society. The institution's methods were tyrannical, and these women were exploited for years without being paid and could not leave. 30.000 women were forced to stay in these Laundries from the 18th to the 20th Century. The last Irish Magdalene closed in 1996.

There have already been several other films, plays, and novels about the Magdalene Laundries. For example, Magdalene Sisters (2002) by the Scottish director Peter Mullan is a film about 3 young women sentenced to go to the Magdalene asylum as a punishment for having breached the moral norms of society. The plays include, among others, An Triail by Máiréad Ní Ghráda, published in 1964, which shows a scene in a Magdalene Laundry, and The Magdalene Whitewash by Valerie Goodwin. There is also a TV show, "The Woman in the Wall" (2023), which features the survivors of a Magdalene Laundry. In literature, there are many stories. For example, James Joyce references it in Dubliners and his famous Ulysses, while Rachel Dilworth also writes about it in The Wild Rose Asylum: Poems of the Magdalen Laundries of Ireland, a collection of poems that won the 2008 Akron Poetry Prize. Further, Rachael Romero's In the Shadow of Eden is a memoir about her incarceration in the Convent of the Good Shepherd Laundries (Magdalene) in South Australia.

Small Things Like These with Cillian Murphy is the latest contribution to the denunciation of this travesty that affected thousands of women. When Cillian Murphy read the novel and learned about the story, he loved the project and was eager to participate in its production.

In other Cillian Murphy news, a "Peaky Blinders" film, directed by Tom Harper, is currently in the works, written by Steven Knight, the show's creator. It will be on our screens by the end of 2025/beginning of 2026.

Small Things Like These has proved that Cillian Murphy is an incredible lead actor who can switch from the gangster Thomas Shelby in "Peaky Blinders" to the tormented genius of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the ordinary coal miner Bill Furlong. Cillian Murphy is unstoppable. His versatile talent has no limits!

Small Things Like These is in theatres now!