Alternate Best Actor 2024: Cillian Murphy in Small Things Like These

Cillian Murphy did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Bill Furlong in Small Things Like These. 

Small Things Like These follows a coal merchant in an Irish village who notices alarming things at the local convent. 

Cillian Murphy coming off his extremely deserved Oscar win for leading Christopher Nolan’s three hour epic unexpected blockbuster Oppenheimer followed that up in the most Cillian Murphy way possible by leading this extremely modest film in every way, however the one consistency being having the finally properly appreciated Cillian Murphy in the lead. Murphy’s role however is quite different, getting to play a native Irish character and the most run of the mill of men it would seem who open the film as he’s just living his life, with his large family of daughters and with his wife Eileen (Eileen Walsh). The early scenes of the film are Bill just going through his routine of delivering coal and spending time with his family. Where Murphy is the ideal pairing for this film which is in large part successful through his striking sense of place, Murphy’s performance is part of this sense of place. Murphy is just wearing the location in his own performance as he just seems as much part of that bits of dirt on his hand, and the frequently cold or damp weather just is in this man’s eyes and in his very being as a person. There is no need to believe Bill in this film, Murphy just is Bill in that quality of the experience is what we immediately feel within him. Murphy’s work here is intensely quiet, and makes even his often internalized work in Oppenheimer seem loud by comparison. Although what both performances have in common is just how much Murphy can contain in his face, which is even more essential to this performance than his previous turn. As Murphy is creating the experience of the man to allow us within his specific mental space, and physical space of this world. In the early scenes of the film we see Bill go by his day to day experience. And what Murphy does in his performance makes us feel what this experience is. In his working of his route, Murphy has a natural exasperation, not of someone truly spent by his job, but has been working his physically demanding hours for some time and is very much in the routine, which is tiring however also routine. We see him go along with his family, where Murphy expresses a very natural warmth in the way he interacts with his daughters. He’s very, very quiet with them still, but just through a small smile, and the brightness in his eyes you see the unquestionable love he has for his family, and that Bill is clearly a great dad. We see him attend a town Christmas event, where Murphy brings the bits of joy that he shares more than anything with his family, and even just his slight bit of quiet amusement when his wife makes it very clear, though not the most subtle of hints, what she would like from him for Christmas. It isn’t the idyllic life, not is it is a flawed life, it is a perfectly pleasant life for the most part, in a times a harsh environment, and Murphy’s portrayal of it embodies the years and years of this life as just a given as part of the experience that makes Bill the person he is. 

An important moment happens early on where Bill sees a boy he knows running alongside his truck, to which he stops by to greet the boy he knows comes from a far less than perfect family. Murphy is great in the scene through the simplicity of the goodness of his performance, as you see the man just in his modest way bringing such a natural heart in trying to be as encouraging as he can be in recognizing the boy and even giving him a little bit of money. Something we see later on where he admits he gave the money with a brief delivery and looking down knowing Eileen will probably balk at his charity. Murphy though in the scene shows the man going along as he does, but in going along as he does, there is the striking awareness of what is around him and perhaps the small things he can do to be empathetic. That awareness ends up being the focal point of the film where in his route Bill does coal drop offs to the local convent, where each stop off Murphy’s performance speaks volumes, despite saying very little in the initial scenes. His first seeing a woman being pulled into the convent basically screaming horror as she is led in, and Murphy’s work says so much just in his eyes of taking in the seemingly terrible thing he is witnessing. Bill makes no action in the moment, but Murphy’s reaction to it leaves the impact within the man quite notably. The next time he makes the drop no one is there to deal with the order so Bill comes inside, only for one of the women confined to the convent to run to him to beg him for help. Murphy’s amazing in the scene as he just tries to defer by saying “he can’t”, and in every delivery Murphy is powerful in the sense of a quiet shame in the words combined with the real sadness in every statement. There’s more though in that Murphy’s expression takes in the horror of it, potently you see the man shaken within the moment and even though he insists he can’t do anything, Murphy shows so potently the impact the interaction has on him on a fundamental level. Something he brings home and discusses with his wife, where Murphy’s incredible in the weight he brings in his face as he recounts what has happened to his wife, who mostly dismisses his concerns and notes that he has a soft heart. Meanwhile Bill counters about his own experience and kindness he was given as a young boy by a wealthy woman who helped him and his mother when he was young. Murphy is great in the scene because there is so much in his smallness in just looking out, where you see the events of the night, his daughters’ own potential future and his past just playing out in his mind. Every word he speaks begins with the traumatic weight of knowing he did the wrong thing by ignoring and just cannot get the memories from his mind. 

Unfortunately for Bill the next time he goes on his rounds, he doesn’t just discover something suspicious but rather finds one of the young women at the convent put in the coal shed he makes deliveries to. Murphy’s amazing in the scene through the humanity he brings in the horror in his reaction to seeing the poor woman clearly having been placed here for hours. Murphy’s work embodies both in his expression and through his physical reaction, where you just see him so naturally become ill at the cruelty of the treatment, that is so incredibly moving. As Murphy brings such an attempt to then bring warmth as he tries to bring her in, as Murphy creates the struggle within Bill to try to project any kind of comfort he can, while clearly still being very much disturbed. Murphy once again does so much within the small minimalist limits of his work, yet is effortlessly captivating in bringing you into such an incredible sense of the empathy of Bill as he takes the young woman back inside the convent. Where he ends up meeting the Mother Superior (Emily Watson), who unlike Bill where Murphy emphasizes uncertainties in the man’s empathy, we see the cold certainties of Watson’s performance as a woman has no reservations or hesitations in her treatment of the women. Murphy’s great in his anti-chemistry with Watson as you see him even fall into himself in a kind of fear in reaction to the Mother Superior, as he immediately crafts such tension within Bill, and makes us feel so tangibly that Bill in a way is facing the entirety of the authority of his town as the Mother Superior insists on talking about the incident further with him. Murphy is tremendous in this scene by very much not being the dominating performer, and allowing Watson to be so. Murphy essentially is giving a masterclass with every halted breath and glance over to Watson, as Mother Superior runs down Bill’s prospects and family with a combination of both threat and bribe regarding the incident Bill was just part of. Murphy’s amazing in just how he rides this line between complete fear but just the hints of strength in Bill, such as noting his complete lack of shame in not having a son and himself carrying on his mother’s name. Murphy plays so well in living within the tension himself, but you see Bill still very much taking it all in, creating the uncertainties so strikingly. Murphy so artfully embodies the tension of the scene, because he doesn’t make it a momentary fear of the ramifications, rather you see the weight of essentially a societal burden upon him as goes through the strange process of the Mother Superior dismissing any troubles, while also offering him a “reward” and with an emphasis that he forget all of it. 

One of Murphy’s greatest moments as an actor comes immediately afterwards in just his silence as he walks out of the convent, with the “reward” in hand, and Murphy’s portrayal is filled with so much anxiety and self-loathing, where he shows the way Bill is thinking of what he has done, before taking his first action by telling the young woman his name and where he can be found. Murphy’s great because he doesn’t play it with an immediate confidence or any of the story, rather he shows very much the fear that is still penetrating his mind in every moment of his delivery, and through this expressing just how much it takes Bill to find his courage as his first step. Murphy presents the trauma and the impact of the night’ event as he drives home, and all Murphy has to work with is himself and some breaths. But Murphy’s performance with those breaths and just the small space of the truck, let’s us within his mental space so viscerally as the man going through it all and in no way being able to escape the deep penetrating thoughts of what he saw. And from that moment on the burden of the events is something that is within every aspect of Murphy’s portrayal of Bill as he basically can not exist within his life with the knowledge of what he experienced at the convent. There is no longer even the smallest bit of comfort within Murphy’s performance, showing the man now fixated within his thoughts and unable to move on from what he knows is right. Murphy’s outstanding because what he does is through such subtle changes, such quiet choices in his performance, makes it penetrate that much deeper as he pulls us into Bill’s frame of mind wholly. As you watch Murphy, you too can’t escape the thoughts because he makes them so true just within his eyes, within his physical posture, you know what the man is going through and you know what he can’t escape. Murphy gives us the intimate details, without speaking for the most part, of the man making his decision to go against what everyone tells him, what the societal expectations are and goes to help the woman regardless. And even though the decision will unquestionably have consequences upon him, Murphy gives such beautiful work in presenting Bill no longer with those burdens of his conscience. Instead what we see is just this quietly supportive warmth as he takes the woman along and helps her in her escape. Murphy doesn't do it with a a beaming face or anything big of the ilk, just this small but potent tenderness in every physical interaction and his quietly assuring delivery. His final moment of his perfomrance, which finally we see a true smile to reassure the young woman rahter than himself speaks volumes because Murphy through his work has made it such a hard earned moment of internal comfort after so much pain. Murphy in his extremely modest performance, is absolutely exceptional, giving a masterclass in subtlety, by using that smallness to let us in on such an intimate yet absolutely heartwrenching personal journey.