Lionsgate has dropped the official trailer and set UK, Ireland and U.S. release dates for Small Things Like These, starring Oscar winner Cillian Murphy. Check out the trailer above and a new poster below.
Small Things Like These opened the Berlin Film Festival in February, the first time an Irish movie has had the honor. Emily Watson went on to win the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance for her role. Lionsgate later acquired North America, the UK and Ireland. It will release the film first in the UK and Ireland on November 1, followed by the U.S. on November 8; the latter with Roadside Attractions.
Murphy, who also produces, stars as devoted father Bill Furlong in the drama that’s based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Claire Keegan. While working as a coal merchant to support his family, Bill 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.
Also starring Eileen Walsh, Michelle Fairley and Zara Devlin, the story plays out in the weeks leading up to Christmas 1985.
Small Things Like These is directed by Tim Mielants (Peaky Blinders) and adapted by Enda Walsh (Hunger, Disco Pigs) from Keegan’s Booker Prize shortlisted novel.
Murphy has previously told Deadline he “fell in love with the book” whose story is “very specific,” but with “a huge universality to it.”
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Artists Equity financed the film after Murphy met Damon while working on Oppenheimer (read more about that encounter here). Producers are Murphy and his longtime collaborator and partner at Big Things Films, Alan Moloney, along with Artists Equity’s Damon and Drew Vinton; and Catherine Magee. Exec producers are Affleck, Michael Joe, Kevin Halloran and Niamh Fagan.
Here’s the new poster: