Director Tim Mielants poignantly adapts this well-respected novel by Claire Keegan with longtime friend and collaborator Cillian Murphy. The indelibly Irish tale is a passion project of Murphy’s, one which he introduced Matt Damon to on the set of Oppenheimer. The film is produced Damon, Ben Affleck, and Drew Vinton at Artist’s Equity, alongside Murphy himself.
The film introduces us to the town of New Ross, Ireland. The town is facing harsh weather and dreary times as Christmas approaches in 1985. There’s plenty of demand for coal, which keeps soft-spoken businessman Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) working from morning to dusk.
Early scenes depict Bill as a fair boss, family man, and a hard worker who proudly scrub his hands at the close of each day to get an honest day’s work off them (and to not taint the dinner meal with coal particles). Director Mielants brilliantly characterizes the intensity of the hand scrub at Bill’s base level speed, and then we see Bill’s more tormented version as the plot unravels cruelty in the church and Bill revisits the tragedy in his own life.
In flashbacks, the childhood of Bill is shown with his young, single mother. Having been ostracized by her family, she lived a tragically short life which still effects Bill to this day. It’s a scar that becomes more and more inflamed as Bill finds unsettling evidence of mistreatment in the local Catholic church.
A trip inside to settle a bill/payment with one of the church’s sisters leads Bill to meet two young women who appear miserable cleaning the floors. One races toward Bill as if he is a savior and she begs him to rescue her from the place. Bill is startled by the woman and feels unable to help. A very authoritative Sister from the church appears and gets the girls in line while steering Bill out of the hallway. She demands to know what he was looking for and directs him to handle his bill properly next time.
Bill is troubled by what he saw and it stays with him in his own home, where he has a lengthy scene with his wife about his concerns. The climax of the film occurs shortly after, on the Catholic property once again.
Bill arrives early one morning and opens the coal shed to find a young woman, Sarah (Agnes O’Casey). Sarah was locked in the shed in freezing temperatures and Bill helps her up and brings her inside to get warm. The sisters are alerted and Bill is brought up to the expansive office of corrupt Sister Mary (a brilliant Emily Watson).
Bill sits in a chair in front of the fire while Sarah is getting cleaned up somewhere else. The fire dances on Bill’s face, he’s still shaken by his discovery and there’s a fury building inside him… all this is portrayed with the framing of the camera and Murphy’s acting.
Sister Mary sits in the room, ready to manipulate the situation as soon as Sarah joins the duo.
Sarah enters and has a seat, still in pain and filled with fear, O’Casey genuinely connects with the audience and her raw performance is haunting. There’s the foreboding sense that her abusers are present in the room and can make life even harder for her.
Sister Mary begins to spins a story of how the other girls bullied Sarah and put her in the freezing shed. Bill sits in silence as the fire dances off his face, listening as a trembling Sarah agrees with the false narrative of Sister Mary.
Once Sarah leaves the room, Sister Mary, the convent’s Mother Superior, turns her attention to Bill. She asks about his family and strongly implies that if he speaks about what he has seen she could prevent his remaining daughters from attending the local school. She then presents Bill with a gift of money and a holiday card to his wife, Eileen. Bill returns home feeling more troubled and doesn’t present the card to his wife.
In fact, the Sisters bring up the gift to Eileen and it surprises her, as Bill felt the bribe money wasn’t worth presenting… he’s very conflicted by it all.
Bill later visits Mrs. Kehoe at the pub, who advises Bill to toe the line and not speak out about the convent and what’s going on, as he has much to lose with his own family and little to gain.
One evening, Bill heads Christmas shopping and finds his way to the convent, opens the coal shed where he again finds Sarah, and Bill takes her out of there… ultimately carrying her on his back.
Bill washes his hands and welcomes her into his home, and he has removed the guilt weighing on him these past days.
Murphy does immeasurable work with very little dialogue. So much of the work was his role as a producer, ensuring this incredibly powerful Irish true story gets the spotlight on it that it deserves. I’m reminded of the Oscar Best Picture winning film Spotlight, which highlighted the sex crimes of Catholic priests in America.
While the scope of this film is smaller, its power is no less prevalent and that’s thanks to performances from Murphy, Watson, and O’Casey. Visually, Mielants is a master storyteller as he transports us to the frigid environment of the soul as well as the body. Like the bitter cold that keeps the body covered in layers, there’s many layers preventing anyone from standing up to the misdeeds of the almighty church.
Despite its slow burn nature, the below the line crafts and performances put the film in the must watch awards conversation.
Letter Grade: A-