Small Things Like These (2024)
Directed by Tim Mielants
No — Small Things Like These is not woke, scoring 15 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
Small Things Like These arrives in 1985 New Ross with snow on the ground and coal dust under its fingernails, a period drama so restrained it seems to be holding its breath.
Consciousness Markers
The film centers the real institutional abuse of women in the Magdalene laundries and the patriarchal power of the Catholic Church over young women's bodies, giving it substantial feminist subject matter, though it is dramatized as somber historical reckoning rather than activist polemic.
The cast is a largely white Irish ensemble typical of a period drama set in 1980s New Ross, with a notable female supporting roster but no meaningful racial or ethnic diversification.
Critics uniformly describe the film as understated, unhurried, and restrained; the moral argument is carried through quiet drama and a closing dedication rather than explicit sermonizing.
The film dramatizes the suppressed history of the Magdalene laundries with a closing dedication to the 56,000 victims, but it does so as a faithful adaptation of documented events rather than an ideological rewriting of the historical record.
There are no LGBTQ+ characters, relationships, or themes anywhere in the narrative.
Race is not a theme; the story concerns class, religion, and gender within an ethnically homogeneous Irish setting.
There is no environmental or climate-related content in the film.
The film critiques Church power and communal complicity, not capitalism or economic structures; Bill's trade as a coal merchant carries no eat-the-rich framing.
No body-positivity themes or messaging are present.
No neurodivergent characters or themes are depicted.
Why it received this score
Small Things Like These arrives in 1985 New Ross with snow on the ground and coal dust under its fingernails, a period drama so restrained it seems to be holding its breath. Cillian Murphy plays Bill Furlong, a coal merchant with five daughters and a conscience he cannot quite set down. Tim Mielants directs Enda Walsh's adaptation of Claire Keegan's novella with a hushed, unhurried patience. The camera watches. Doors open onto rooms we would prefer not to see. This is a film that trusts silence to do the arguing.
The subject is the Magdalene laundries, and the film treats the Church's ownership of young women's bodies as the quiet horror it was. That gives the material a genuine feminist weight, though it arrives as historical reckoning, not as a slogan. Sister Mary, played by Emily Watson with a smile that never reaches the eyes, wields the school placement of Bill's daughters like a leash. The town knows. The town says nothing. The closing dedication to the 56,000 women and their taken children lands without a raised voice, which is its own kind of indictment.
Where the ledger stays mostly empty is everywhere else. The cast is a white Irish ensemble, as the setting demands, and the film has no interest in race, climate, capital, or the body as a political site. Its critique is aimed at clerical power and communal cowardice, not at markets. It is a somber, faithful adaptation of documented atrocity, and it declines to lecture. We get a man carrying a girl through a town that has decided not to look. The classification here is modest: a serious film about serious things, which is not the same as a film with a message.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
In 1985, while working as a coal merchant to support his family, Bill Furlong discovers disturbing secrets kept by the local convent and uncovers truths of his own; forcing him to confront his past and the complicit silence of a small Irish town controlled by the Catholic Church.
Questions about Small Things Like These
Is Small Things Like These woke?
No — Small Things Like These is not woke, scoring 15 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Ultra Based.
Does Small Things Like These have any woke elements?
1 of the 10 markers register at 30 or above, led by Feminist Agenda (40). On Feminist Agenda: The film centers the real institutional abuse of women in the Magdalene laundries and the patriarchal power of the Catholic Church over young women's bodies, giving it substantial feminist subject matter, though it is dramatized as somber historical reckoning rather than activist polemic.
How does Small Things Like These compare to other 2024 movies?
It ranks #102 of the 189 films from 2024 we've scored; their average is 22. The wokest is The Six Triple Eight (92).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.