Cillian Murphy's new movie Small Things Like These debuts with 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating
Cillian Murphy's new movie Small Things Like These has debuted to critical acclaim, earning an impressive 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The new film, which marks the star's first major role after Oppenheimer, focuses on Ireland's Magdelene Laundries, which were horrific asylums run by Roman Catholic institutions between the 18th and late 20th centuries.
The movie is told from the perspective of Murphy's Bill Furlong in 1985, as he starts to discover harrowing secrets in his town and learns some "shocking truths of his own".
Related: Cillian Murphy lands next lead role in Netflix movie
Small Things Like These, which is based on the Claire Keegan book, premiered last night (February 15) at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, landing the highest possible score on Rotten Tomatoes (at the time of writing).
The first reviews have heaped praise on Murphy's performance, as well as the film's tackling of its subject matter and examination of the complicity of bystanders to horrific events.
Here's what critics have been saying:
Time Out
"It’s a profound performance by Murphy – perhaps even more so in fewer words than Oppenheimer – as Bill’s anger burns with tragic urgency. The question lingers: will you look or look away, act or stay silent?"
IndieWire
"A genuinely profound low-key gem which will be remembered long after the champagne and sequins have been swept away."
Variety
"It’s Murphy’s exquisitely pained performance, unclenching by fine degrees into something like grace, that gives Small Things Like These its eventual, fist-in-the-gut power, even as the film evades melodramatic confrontation to the last, ending elegantly at a point where many other stories might choose to begin."
The Hollywood Reporter
"Led with aching sensitivity by Murphy, this is a somber, unhurried drama that takes its cue from the seeming quietness of the title and is all the more intensely moving for it."
The Daily Telegraph
"Small Things Like These is 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 in his first post-Oppenheimer role."
The Times
"Cillian Murphy, still in the midst of Oppenheimer Oscar hoopla, adds another startling performance to his résumé in this stylish production based on Claire Keegan’s Booker-shortlisted novella."
The Film Stage
"Murphy gives a characteristically tender, interior performance as a man burdened with a conscious even heavier than his considerable knitwear."
Small Things Like These is yet to confirm a cinema release date.
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