Presented at the opening of the Ghent Film Festival (Film Fest Gent), the historical drama by Belgian director Tim Mielants stars Cillian Murphy in the role of a man haunted by his past.
As is now usual, the Ghent Film Festival opens with a Belgian film. This year, it’s “Small Things Like These”, a co-production between Belgium and Ireland, which kicks off the hostilities. But make no mistake: if its director (Tim Mielants, to whom we owe “Wil” and “Patrick”) and certain members of the technical team are indeed Belgian, the feature film is undeniably anchored in Ireland.
Led by Cillian Murphy, Oscar winner last year for “Oppenheimer,” the historical drama sees the actor keeping a low profile. With a sad face, a worried look, dragging bags of coal to his customers, he wanders for a good part of the story through the small town of New Ross, which is preparing to celebrate Christmas in the year 1985. No doubt, something is haunting him.
Unfortunately, you have to be patient to find out exactly what is bothering our man. Punctuated by a series of flashbacks, sometimes superfluous, the film struggles to get to the point, at the risk of letting boredom rear its ugly head. From a cinematographic point of view, the film is completely convincing, as much for its visual games on the darkness of the city as its stripped-down work on sound, or even the nuanced performances of its performers. But the care given to the whole thing can do little to counter the torpor of the story.
This is all the more regrettable since the issues and themes that drive the film, when they finally manifest, are far from being devoid of interest: the need to act in the face of the injustices of the world, the courage of compassion, the unsaid things of small towns, the power of the church. But like its protagonist, “Small Things Like These” ends up losing us by losing its way.
