Julie Helen: Film left me with more questions than answers 

I went to see Small Things Like These, the new film starring Cillian Murphy and Eileen Walsh. I haven’t been to a film that’s not aimed at children for years, but I felt compelled to go to this.

I was struck when I heard Cillian say in a recent radio interview that he felt a film isn’t really finished until people see it. So I figured I would do my bit and go along with my friend Laura.

I had read the book by Claire Keegan and Laura hadn’t. The film was set the year we were both born, 1985. I think because of this I connected the main character, who has five daughters, with my own dad.

I will try not to give away the meat of the film, as I believe everyone who can should see it. It is not a secret that the plot centres on a mother and baby home run by nuns, and Cillian’s character discovering the disconnect between the public face of the convent and what is really going on behind closed doors.

We are presented with so much imagery of a hard-working and devoted husband and father who experiences great turmoil over what he should and shouldn’t do.

We see his interactions as a small business owner with the nuns. We see him cowering in fear, trying to be respectful of authority but also being true to his own past and upbringing. We see the poverty of the time for many, but also the luck this man has had and the love he has for his family. All the time, I kept thinking, “this was not that long ago” and “this could have been a man I know and love”.

We see an awful lot of hypocrisy from the church and ordinary decent people just doing their best as the climate of the time allowed.

At the end, as the credits roll, we are reminded that 56,000 women in Ireland experienced a mother and baby home up until 1996.

I spoke to my mum at length after watching the film and she explained they didn’t truly know what the mother and baby homes were about, other than a threat from her grandmother that she might end up in one if she got pregnant at a young age before being married. The whole concept of sending your own child away to have a baby is thankfully completely alien to me and I am glad society has moved on.

As a disabled person, I know from reading the reports into mother and baby homes that disabled women were “put away” without any babies whatsoever. If I’m honest, I’ve never shifted so often in my seat throughout a film. It was unsettling, uncomfortable, slow-moving and frustrating - it was supposed to be and the performances were superb. I could feel the emotion and the raw anguish of the characters.

Oddly, I also thought a lot about Covid 19 lockdowns as a significant historical time I have lived through first hand. Even just a few years on, when you hear stories and accounts, it all feels a bit sanitised or we have gotten over it to the extent where we don’t tell of the real sadness and worry we felt - so that makes me wonder, how much has history forgotten to tell us about this part of society. I think we don’t know the half of it and after watching Small Things Like These, I am left with way more questions than answers. 

My heart is with all the people who feel this far more deeply than me, because there are way too many.