Cillian Murphy in "Small Things Like These."Lionsgate

Anyone who is a fan of Claire Keegan’s work must have been slightly anxious when they heard Cillian Murphy was about to turn "Small Things Like These" into a film that was backed by both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

After all, subjecting Keegan’s prose to the full Hollywood treatment could have overblown a delicate story.

After watching the film though, it’s clear they needn’t have worried - Keegan is in safe hands with Murphy as producer, Tim Meliants as director, and playwright Enda Walsh as the man responsible for transposing Keegan’s work to the screen.

Murphy is the lead too as Bill Furlong, a New Ross coal merchant and family man of few words who’s well respected in the town.

He looks after his five girls and his wife Eileen, played by Eileen Walsh (in a full reunion of the Corcadorca Disco Pigs) and is a good employer too. Bill’s the kind of man who loves routine, he’s up in the morning for deliveries, there’s a pub lunch with the lads then home to the dinner kept for him in the oven in between two plates which he eats as he helps his girls with their homework.

His quiet nature disguises some secrets and this winter of 1985, there’s something troubling him. It starts as he meets the classmate of one of his girls on a rural road when he should be at school. The boy is collecting sticks for the fire and as Bill presses a few coins into the child’s palm, a feeling of unease starts brewing.

Bill is one of those people who finds the dark nights and the creep of Christmas claustrophobic, simply because of what happened in his own childhood, which is revealed piece by piece to the audience.

But it’s not until he’s delivering coal to the local convent when he sees Sarah Redmond being forced in by her parents.

The image haunts him until he calls again and she asks him to help her escape which he initially dismisses. Her circumstances become a discussion at home as Eileen whispers that the girls in the convent are not their problem, the girls at their own kitchen table are and their education relies on the nuns allowing them into the school in the first instance.

"Small Things Like These." (Lionsgate)

Eileen doesn’t understand the anxiety and restlessness her husband is feeling but Bill, in turn, can’t understand why she doesn’t worry about what’s happening around them.

When he finds Sarah, excellently portrayed by Zara Devlin, locked in the coal cellar at the convent, he ends up in front of the formidable Mother Superior (Emily Fox), who basically bribes him to keep his nose out of their business via a Christmas card full of money addressed to his wife.

"Small Things Like These." (Lionsgate)

But when Sarah reappears in the coal cellar, Bill knows he can’t be complicit in the silence of his community any longer, regardless of the consequences.

"Small Things Like These." (Lionsgate)

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"Small Things Like These" is a tense watch, it moves quietly but packs a punch as it explores the pervasive cruelty of the Mother and Baby Institutions and the Church that created them.

It shows how society turned a blind eye to the "othering" of those who were seen to have misstepped the rules and regulations that made communities complicit in cruelty.

The cinematography perfectly contrasts the Christmas cheer of present buying, choirs, and snowflakes with the claustrophobic, greasy grey streets of an Irish country town where so many weren’t part of any joy to the world.

It might be based on fiction but there is no doubt that "Small Things Like These" tells a very uncomfortable truth about Ireland’s past.

You can watch the trailer for "Small Things Like These" here:

*This article was originally published on Extra.ie.