Small Things Like These 

Directed by Tim Mielants
Starring Cillian Murphy, Eileen Walsh, Michelle Fairley, Claire Dunne, Helen Behan, and Emily Watson
Released Feb. 15, 2024 (Berlin Int’l Film Festival)
Watch Time: 98 min.

Small Things Like These was adapted from the Booker Prize-nominated novella by Claire Keegan. I first read one of her books (Foster) last year, and was blown away by her prose – both the narration and the dialog. Restrained. Precise. Almost perfect. The stories were wonderful, too. Stripped to the bone but jarringly true.

Tim Mielants did a good job reproducing much that was great about the book, but the film fell short in several places. Nothing major. It was still better than most of the movies nominated for an Oscar this year.

The Plot 

The story takes place over Christmas in 1985, when devoted father and coal merchant Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) discovers startling secrets kept by the convent in his town, along with some shocking truths of his own. The film reveals truths about Ireland’s Magdalene laundries – horrific asylums run by Roman Catholic institutions from the 1820s until 1996, ostensibly to reform “fallen young women.” (Source: Rotten Tomatoes)

 What I Liked About It 

* The story: heart-breaking and believable
* The script: kept reasonably close to the book
* The performance of Eileen Walsh
* The scenery (very Ireland)
* The cinematography (properly gloomy)

What I Didn’t Like 

* The performance of Cillian Murphy – who was picture-perfect in Peaky Blinders – is less than perfect here. In Keegan’s book, Bill Furlong was a strong, stoic, manly man with an available heart. In playing Furlong here, Murphy comes across as timid, subdued, and sometimes wimpy. This may have been the fault of Mielants, who may have believed that portraying him that way would make the character more sympathetic. But for my money, it made him less interesting, however more politically correct.

* I was also disappointed in the casting of Furlong as a boy. The character should have been truer to what I believe Keegan’s young Furlong was in the book – soft on the inside, but hard as stone on the outside.

* There were several minor plot deviations from the book that I felt weakened the film a bit here and there, but not enough to bitch about them.

Critical Reception 

Reviews of Small Things like These were almost universally positive. Some examples:

* Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian gave the film four out of five stars, describing it as an “absorbing, committed drama.” “I was so rapt, so caught up in this film,” he wrote, “that I wasn’t aware that it was going to be the ending until the screen faded to black.”

* Tim Robey from The Telegraph described it as “a tight-lipped Irish drama even more suffused with sadness than the log-line implies, and shouldered with hypnotic grace by a very special Cillian Murphy.”

* Rachel Pronger from IndieWire called it “a genuinely profound low-key gem.”

* Richard Roeper from the Chicago Sun-Times called it “quite possibly the best movie I’ve seen so far this year.”

About Cillian Murphy 

Cillian Murphy is an Irish actor. His work encompasses both stage and screen, and his accolades include an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Golden Globe. He made his professional debut in Enda Walsh’s 1996 play Disco Pigs, a role he reprised in the 2001 screen adaptation.

My Rating 

* Horizontality: 3.6 
* Verticality: 3.2
* Stickiness: 3.2
* Visual Richness: 3.6
* Overall: 3.4 out of 4.0

You can watch the trailer here.

About My Rating System 

Last month, I introduced you to the system I use for the books and films I review here. To remind you…

My Rating System for Most Books/Films 

* Horizontality: How much and how well did the book/film provide a sense of a particular place, time, community, and/or culture?

* Verticality: How deeply did the book/film go in mining the depths of the human experience?

* Stickiness: How tightly did the book/film keep me glued to the story?

* Literary/Visual Richness: How well did the written descriptions/cinematography enhance the story?

And sometimes, as you will see in my review of Anora below, I add bonus points for something I felt was especially good.

The Apprentice 

Directed by Ali Abbasi
Starring Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Martin Donovan, and Maria Bakalova
Released Oct. 2024
Watch Time: 2 hrs.

However much the “true” story attracted me to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk (one of the books I’ll be reviewing next time), I was equally put off by watching this drama (docudrama?) about Donald Trump. I’d been reading enough about him already. But one of the Mules (EW, I believe) recommended the film at our last meeting. He noted that Trump didn’t like it – at all, apparently – but that he thought it was a sympathetic view of him. That was enough to pique my interest.

The Plot 

The film covers “Donnie” as he starts out in his father’s property business in the 1970s and 1980s – before his political career and his time as the star of the long-running The Apprentice reality TV show. It ends as Trump commissions the ghostwriter for his 1987 bestseller, The Art of The Deal, and undergoes surgery for liposuction and baldness. (Source: Sky News)

What I Liked About It 

* The performances of two lead actors were very good. Sebastian Stan did a solid job imagining Trump’s transition from a father’s boy to a young man exceeding his father, and the change in his relationship to his mentor, as he gained power. Jeremy Strong was absolutely mesmerizing in his portrayal of Roy Cohn, a mercurially complicated man.

* The depiction of the relationship between Trump and Cohn, with Trump being the apprentice. It got me interested in learning more about it, and any time a movie has me doing research afterwards, it’s a plus in my book.

What I Didn’t Like 

Almost everything that came after Cohn’s death.

The core of this movie was the mentor/mentee relationship, and that was done brilliantly. The film should have ended there, but it went on, like an addendum pasted on to make the film more topical.

Critical Reception 

* From The Observer (UK): “It’s surprising and even a little disappointing that The Apprentice doesn’t go all in on the grotesque and extreme aspects of the Trumpian evolution. But it does show a side of [Trump] that, you suspect, he would prefer not to be seen.”

* From Entertainment Magazine: “Director Ali Abbasi has made a career out of crafting unexpected, controversial films such as 2018’s supernatural romance Border and 2022’s serial killer procedural Holy Spider. But with The Apprentice, Abbasi has made his most contentious movie to date.”

* From Roger Ebert.com: “Is this a satire of the American Dream? A horror movie about how it became a nightmare? Or a comedy about a buffoon who basically stumbled into the men’s room on the right day? It seems unwilling to really answer these questions, content to substitute easy shots for difficult conversations about capitalism, politics, family, and marriage. Maybe there’s just too much to say about Donald Trump for a two-hour movie. I have the feeling this won’t be the last attempt to figure him out.”

Interesting 

* Dan Snyder, a close billionaire friend of Trump’s, originally helped fund the film with the expectation that it would depict Trump positively. After seeing a finished cut, he tried to stop its distribution. And Trump’s own legal team issued a cease-and-desist notice. They were obviously unsuccessful.

* Roy Cohn – a key figure in Trump’s life story – was a closeted gay man who died of complications from AIDS. He began his career as a fierce anti-Communist prosecutor and worked alongside Richard Nixon and US Senator Joe McCarthy, who led the discredited anti-Communist witch hunts of the early 1950s.

About Jeremy Strong 

Jeremy Strong, who plays Cohn in the movie, is an American “method” actor. He is best known for his starring role as Kendall Roy in the HBO series Succession. He’s also appeared in many successful movies, including Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, The Big Short, and The Gentlemen. He has won an Emmy, a Tony, a Golden Globe, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.

My Rating 

* Horizontality: 3.0
* Verticality: 3.6
* Stickiness: 3.5
* Visual Richness: 3.4
* Overall: 3.4 out of 4.0

You can watch the trailer here.

Anora 

Directed by Sean Baker
Starring Mikey Madison, Paul Weissman, Yura Borisov, Mark Eydelshteyn, and Lindsey Normington
Released Oct. 2024
Watch Time: 2 hrs, 19 min.

It must have been nominated for something. It was on K’s list of films to watch before the Oscars. As I mention below, there were moments in watching this very good movie when I was uncomfortable. Okay, squeamish. Nevertheless, it was the best of the Oscar-nominated films I’ve watched so far.

The Plot 

Anora, a young woman from Brooklyn, gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as the parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled. (Source: Google)

What I Liked About It 

* The performances of Mikey Madison and Mark Eydelshteyn. Madison plays Anora (Ani), the lead – a hardworking, foul-mouthed stripper/prostitute, negotiating an impossible fantasy of her own devising. (She reminds me of Marisa Tomei as Mona Lisa in My Cousin Vinny.) If Madison is not well-known already, this role is her ticket to stardom. Eydelshteyn plays Vanya (Evan), the charming, immature spendthrift son of a Russian billionaire. Madison will likely get most of the kudos, but the movie would not have worked nearly as well without this kid’s charismatic performance.

* The story. This is not Pretty Woman. It’s just as much fun, but much better and much truer.

What I Didn’t Like 

Too much humping in the first 30 minutes. I realize that they meet in a strip club, and that she is an occasional hooker… still, it was too much for me.

Interesting 

* The cast includes a mixture of Russian and American actors with interesting backgrounds. Baker cast Madison after seeing her in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Scream. He hired her without an audition. She learned Russian, visited strip clubs, and studied the Brooklyn accent to prepare.

* The film had a miniscule budget of only $6 million. It made six times that much at the box office. By now, it’s got to be at least a 10-bagger.

Critical Reception 

Anora was nominated for a bunch of Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress. And it won a slew of other awards, including the Palme d’Or.

* “Mikey Madison gives a career-making performance in a Palme d’Or-winning film about the romance between a sex worker and a rich scion.” – The New York Times

* “It’s a rollercoaster ride, yet Baker never confuses movement with action. Every twist takes you somewhere you hadn’t quite expected to be, revealing an emotion you hadn’t expected to share.” – Sidney Morning Herald

* “Anora is a small film that feels much larger, elevated by humour, chaos, and human tenderness.” – Independent (UK)

* “Though Anora frequently sparkles, it’s also inconsistent, so it falls short of becoming a classic of its genre. Still, thanks to its appealingly youthful energy and its earthy performances, it’s one of the spiciest comedies of the year.” – Wall Street Journal

My Rating 

* Horizontality: 3.0
* Verticality: 3.6
* Stickiness: 3.7
* Visual Richness: 3.4
* Overall: 3.4

* Bonus points (for performances of the principal actors): 0.3
* Final Score: 3.7

You can watch the trailer here.