It’s a couple of years since I read Claire Keegan’s short novel Small Things Like These, but I haven’t forgotten it. I was curious to see how it would translate to film. Is it really possible to capture on celluloid the world of meaning in questions like…?

As they carried on along and met more people Furlong did and did not know, he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another?

Can this sentiment be acted?

The worst was yet to come, he knew. Already he could feel a world of trouble waiting for him behind the next door, but the worst that could have happened was also already behind him; the thing not done, which could have been done—which he would have to live with for the rest of his life.

I’m not certain whether it’s possible, but I don’t think this film achieves it.

This is a fine film, though not one without issues. It’s a little longer than it needs to be, and there are some cinematic choices (wobbling cameras, bits out of focus) that made me feel unpleasantly nauseated. I may also be the last person in Britain who’s just not that convinced by Cillian Murphy’s acting—I didn’t really ‘believe’ him in this role. I also wasn’t convinced by Emily Watson’s characterisation, though I think that may have been because her part was a little overwritten: it felt like her underlying evil was written so obviously that it bordered on being a little camp. There was a point where I almost expected an exaggerated wink. Eileen Walsh, on the other hand, was pitch-perfect.

It was, though, an understated and visually arresting portrayal of the plot of the book: a man sees a hint of something evil, and must decide whether to prioritise doing the right thing or protecting himself and his family. It’s a mafia tale with nuns added, which shines a light on a shameful part of the history of Ireland and the Catholic Church.

As far as I’m concerned, though, the book’s plot was secondary to its message. It’s a book about quiet evil and quiet resistance and the moral decisions each of us makes. It strikes me that this form of cinema is a very literal medium, and that in the last year or so of watching films, I’ve noted three ways of subverting that. One is to make the film consciously and obviously abstract (like the wonderful Poor Things); another is to be operatic about it, focusing on moments of intensely expressed emotion and don’t worry so much about the literalness of the plot; and the third is to make clever use of a soundtrack to link figurative illustrations to allegorical ideas. It felt to me as though this film did none of those things: it just ended up being a film constrained to its plot, with seemingly no pressing desire to share a universal message.

For that reason, I’d recommend the book over the film—which is a more clichéd conclusion to a blog post about a film based on a book than I’d prefer to write.