Thanks to “Oppenheimer” and a Golden Globe victory for Best Actor, Cillian Murphy is one of cinema’s “it” actors of the moment. And it’s a long time coming for the “actor’s actor.” So is it any surprise a drama starring Murphy will open the 2024 Berlinale next month? No, it is not.
Deadline reports that Irish drama “Small Things Like These” will open this February’s German festival. The film sees Murphy reunite with director Tim Mielants after the two worked together on Season 3 of the popular TV series “Peaky Blinders.” But “Small Things Like These” isn’t a charismatic crime drama. Instead, it’s a period pace that tackles the controversial legacy of Ireland’s Magdalen laundries, Roman Catholic institutions for “fallen young women.” The reform asylums operated from the 1820s until 1996, but Mielant’s film takes place in 1985, with Murphy playing a coal merchant who discovers startling secrets about the convent in his town.
Mielants adapts a book by Irish novelist Claire Keegan for “Small Things Like These.” Keegan’s work has been adapted before: “Foster,” a 2010 short story by the writer, was adapted into “An Cailín Ciúin,” or “The Quiet Girl,” in 2022 by Colm Bairéad. “Small Things Like These” isn’t the only recent project to tackle the Magdalen laundries either. BBC One series “The Woman In The Wall“ also uses the asylums as a narrative backdrop. Showtime premieres the series on Paramount+ starting tomorrow.
Berlinale Artistic Director Carlo Chatrain thinks Mielants’ new film will set the right tone for the rest of his festival next month. “With “Small Things Like These,” Tim Mielants tells the story of a man of few words, with wide open eyes, as clear as the skies of Ireland,” he said in a press statement. “In “The Quiet Girl,” we already had sense of Claire Keegan’s skill in portraying small, apparently simple characters and making them unforgettable; here her delicate, rich and yet down-to-earth writing finds a great interpreter in Cillian Murphy.”
“Small Things Like These” opens the Berlinale on February 15, with the festival running through the 24th. Actress Lupita Nyong’o heads the competition jury this year, so what will she pick for the coveted Golden Bear? It’s too early for favorites or frontrunners, but “Small Things Like These” could be in the mix there.
