Mainlining Christmas

Small Things Like These is an Irish movie adapted from a novel about a coal merchant attempting to understand his past and find the courage to defy a powerful Catholic organization that's torturing single pregnant women and stealing their children. In short, it's the story of Ireland's own failure to address the Magdalene asylums within their nation for centuries, told through the prism of one man. The movie is exceptionally good by most metrics. Cillian Murphy plays the lead and seems to have been the main force driving the production - he's absolutely fantastic here. That goes for the rest of the cast, as well, but this is really Murphy's movie in more ways than one. Director Tim Mielants creates something impactful and memorable. The cinematography is likewise exceptional, capturing the grit of coal dust and soot that covers the buildings, just as the crime at the heart of the movie remains a blot on the nation (I said this was good, not subtle). It's an effe...