Review

Books

Culture

Ethics

Film & TV

8 November 2024

4 min read

Small Things Like These: putting the spotlight on backstage goodness

What it means for a film to be good.

Kevin Hargaden

Kevin is a social theologian studying ethics and economics.

The gaunt face of a dishevelled man stares into the distance

A ‘stellar’ Cillian Murphy plays Bill Furlong.

Lionsgate.

Small Things Like These is a novella by the Irish writer Claire Keegan. Published in 2021, it compresses a remarkable story into 128 pages. Acclaimed widely by critics and readers, it follows Bill Furlong, a fuel merchant living in the small County Wexford town of New Ross in 1986, as Christmas approaches. While delivering coal to the local convent, Bill makes an alarming discovery. Memories of his childhood begin to press in on him and he finds himself in an existential crisis.

Like her previous (very short) work, Foster, Small Things Like These is an understated book with a searing moral clarity. And just as Foster was adapted for the screen – in the astonishing Irish-language film The Quiet Girl – a movie version of Small Things Like These is now likely showing at a cinema near you.

The movie is built around a stellar performance from Cillian Murphy. It would be criminal if his name is not featured among the shortlists when awards season comes round. Many of the film’s most arresting scenes feature close-ups of his face as Bill wrestles with the implications of his discovery and the phantoms of his past. The effect is that the film serves as an almost literal portrait of what it means to be a decent person.

The story begins with Bill making a delivery to the convent. He sees a mother drop off her screaming daughter to the back door, where she is met and manhandled inside by a nun. The teenager protests passionately, but to no avail. The viewer understands that this girl has “fallen pregnant”, to use the Hiberno-English idiom that was so common in the twentieth century. She has been dispatched by her family to this institution to serve out the months of pregnancy and to remove any shame or taint from their reputation. Bill watches as the girl shouts out for her father, who is entirely absent.

And, after a tense interaction with an aggressive nun, he goes home to his five girls and his wife, clearly shaken.

A few days later, unable to sleep, haunted by memories of his own childhood being raised by a single mother, with an absent father, relying on the kindness of a wealthy local landowner, he begins his deliveries before dawn. As he deposits peat briquettes in the coal shed of the convent, he discovers a teenaged girl abandoned in the corner of the tiny, filthy room. She is in deep distress and Bill responds instinctively, wrapping his coat around her shoulders and bringing her inside to the convent.

While the existence of Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes were not a secret in twentieth century Ireland, the exact details of their operations were not widely understood. With these two encounters, so close together, and his own personal biography as the son of a woman who was subject to exactly the same marginalising dynamics, Bill can no longer be satisfied to turn a blind eye to the oppression and alienation endured by those sent for reformation.

It evokes the ways in which all such systems of oppression are socially constructed and maintained. Otherwise, good people learn to look the other way.

The film gathers momentum as Bill is forced to confront the way his mother had been treated for “falling pregnant” and the reality experienced by girls the same age as his daughters who were in a similar situation. In the midst of his existential angst, he finds little solace in the no-nonsense pragmatism of his wife who reminds him “there are things you have to ignore” to get on in life. He is taken aside by his local publican, a woman who has similarly scrabbled up from humble origins to establish a thriving business and cautioned to not make trouble for the nuns since “their fingers are in every pie in the town”.

I will refrain from fully revealing every detail of the film’s plot. But this element of the screenplay – where Claire Keegan along with Enda Walsh – draw out the sense in which the oppressive ecclesial institutions were enabled and even sanctioned by the wider population is exceptionally well done. The film does not pull any punches on the evils that were committed in the name of churches in Ireland. Indeed, if anything, the presentation of the nuns veers too far towards caricatures of pure malevolence. But with surgical precision, it evokes the ways in which all such systems of oppression are socially constructed and maintained. Otherwise, good people learn to look the other way.

And that is the lasting significance of this film. Toni Morrison has spoken about how it can seem harder to write about goodness than evil. “Evil has a blockbuster audience; goodness lurks backstage.” In Small Things Like This, Claire Keegan introduces us to a hardworking small business owner who treats his staff well, a loving father who seeks to care for his wife, a man who lives down a back street of a provincial town in an overlooked part of a small island on the periphery of Europe. And in this very definitively backstage context, he is presented as heroic in his pursuit of the Good.

We all fancy ourselves to be the one person who would stand up and oppose systems of oppression if we ever found ourselves enmeshed in them. Cillian Murphy’s depiction of Bill Furlong whispers to us that we likely are enmeshed in just that way and are choosing not to notice. Small Things Like These is a heavy film that somehow liberates. It reminds us that there is, within each of us, this appetite for seeing the Good and bring brave enough to do it. It is worth your time far more than any competing blockbuster.

Essay

Aliens

Belief

Creed

Film & TV

14 July 2025

10 min read

Who do you think Doctor Who is?

Why the Doctor is (and isn’t) like Jesus

Barnabas Aspray

Barnabas Aspray is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at St Mary’s Seminary and University.

Doctor Who and River Song ponder metaphysics.

After two series with Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, the future of Doctor Who is uncertain. It may be time for the world’s longest-running sci-fi show, with 892 episodes to date, to come to an end. Or it may not.

Doctor Who is one of the few sci-fi shows with an appeal that reaches beyond typical sci-fi fans. It ranges across every conceivable genre – romance, horror, period drama, epic – to name but a few. The Doctor’s time-travels may take you to Elizabethan England or the year 400,000 C.E. on a planet made of diamond – you won’t know until you start watching. The secret to the show’s longevity is the Doctor’s ability to ‘regenerate’ whenever he (or she) dies, reappearing with a new body and personality. Gatwa was the fifteenth actor to play the Doctor since William Hartnell’s inaugural performance on 23rd November 1963. (However, I secretly suspect that C.S. Lewis was the ‘zeroth’ Doctor, since he died the day before the first episode was aired. Coincidence?)

Science fiction has the unique capacity to do thought-experiments without limits. What if you could go back in time and kill Hitler before he rises to power? What if we could transfer our brains into machines that would enable us to live forever? What if one small act of violence was the only way to save the human race from destruction?

This article draws attention to just one of the numerous metaphysical and ethical lessons that can be drawn from the show’s stories. I do not discuss the compatibility of its moral ideology with Christian morality, or the place it gives to religion in a world with a scientific explanation for everything. My focus is on a single feature: how the Doctor’s immeasurable power places him in a position like that of Jesus according to the Christian tradition. I shall point to three ways the Doctor reminds us of Jesus, and one way in which the Doctor does not look like Jesus, going down a path that Jesus was tempted to take, but refused.

A bloke who puts everything right

In ‘Twice Upon a Time’, Bill Potts asks the first Doctor why he first left his home planet, Gallifrey, to embark on his many adventures. After a few false starts, the Doctor responds like this:

Doctor: “There is good and there is evil. I left Gallifrey to answer a question of my own. By any analysis evil should always win. Good is not a practical survival strategy. It requires loyalty, self-sacrifice, and love. And so why does good prevail? What keeps the balance between good and evil in this appalling universe? Is there some kind of logic, some mysterious force?”

Bill Potts: “Perhaps there’s just a bloke.”

Doctor: “A bloke?”

Bill Potts: “Yeah. Perhaps there's just some bloke wandering around, putting everything right when it goes wrong.”

Why does evil never get the upper hand? That is the Doctor’s fundamental question. Is there some logic, some mysterious force, or is there just a ‘bloke’ who keeps putting things right? All three, from a Christian point of view.

The ultimate triumph of good over evil, according to the Christian story, is thanks to a ‘bloke’ named Jesus who conquered death and rose again so that we might rise again with him at the end of all time. But for Christians, Jesus is not only a ‘bloke’. The Gospel of John equates Jesus with the Logos, a Greek word (where the English word ‘logic’ comes from) to name the rational principle that orders and upholds the universe. The Apostle Paul, in the letter to the Corinthians, also describes Jesus as one ‘by whom all things were created’ and ‘in whom all things hold together’. A ‘mysterious force’ indeed!

To answer the Doctor’s question, then: there is only one thing that stops evil from getting the upper hand. It can be called a logic, and it can be called a mysterious force. But the logic and the force are not impersonal. They are other names for a bloke named Jesus who wanders around putting everything right.

A better way of living your life

After an encounter with the Doctor, nobody is ever the same again. It is not primarily the thrill of adventure or the sight of things more wonderful than can be imagined that changes the Doctor’s companions. It is the example of someone who has devoted their life to save, to heal, to confront evil, and to sacrifice for others.

These features are brought into sharp focus in a moment when Rose Tyler, one of the Doctor’s companions, believes she’s lost the Doctor forever. Her mother tries to comfort her, and this leads her to reflect on what had been so amazing about her time with him:

“It was a better life. And I don’t mean all the travelling and… seeing aliens and spaceships and things… that don’t matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life. That you don’t just give up. You don’t just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what’s right when everyone else just runs away.”

Like his other companions, Rose saw something in the Doctor which challenged her to live up to a higher moral standard, a standard of courage, compassion, and self-sacrifice.

Being with the Doctor puts you in extreme situations where your character is tested and refined. You are forced to face your fears and make crucial decisions about what kind of person you are going to be. Those extreme adventures are rarely the end, however. When his companions return to their lives on earth, they have to decide how to handle normality. Will they wistfully pine after the thrills of the past, seeing normal life as dull and boring, or will they use the wisdom and virtue gained from their adventures to bring peace and justice into the world amidst daily life.

In a similar way, Jesus called his disciples to a higher moral standard, one that prioritises humble, loving service and self-sacrifice. Life with Jesus can be an exhilarating adventure, such as when he calls someone to move and live in a foreign land or to embrace poverty as a lifestyle. But many Christians feel called to follow Jesus in ordinary ways that do not draw attention, and to put his teaching to practice in ordinary everyday life in a way that slowly transforms the world.

The ultimate sacrifice for the least important

The Doctor not only calls his companions to live this way – he leads by example. When Wilfred, the grandfather of one of the Doctor’s companions, gets trapped in a control room about to be flooded by radiation, the Doctor realises that there is only one way to save him. He must replace Wilfred in the control room and be exposed to the radiation instead. Wilfred protests that the Doctor should let him die instead of sacrificing himself to save him, and the Doctor responds with frustration:

Wilfred: “No really, just leave me. I’m an old man, Doctor. I've had my time.”

Doctor: “Well, exactly. Look at you. Not remotely important. But me? I could do so much more. So much more!”

Wilfred is not a national President, a scientist about to make a breakthrough in cancer research, or a famous artist whose paintings will enchant the world. The Doctor complains that Wilfred is not worth saving – not by a logic that looks at the worldly ‘importance’ of an individual. Why, then, should his life be spared, especially in exchange for the life of someone far more powerful and ‘important’?

The Doctor’s frustrated words reveal the moral battle within him. But it does not last long. He knows his duty: to give his life for anyone, no matter how small or unimportant. Every life is worth saving simply because it is a life. He enters the control booth, enabling Wilfred to go free.

This story combines two features central to Christianity. First, it shows the principle that every human life has equal value. God does not measure people by their ‘importance’, their ‘potential’, or their ‘talent’. There is only one measure for a life: the fact that it is created in God’s image and is therefore loved by God. Every life matters, from the greatest down to the very least.

Secondly, this story shows the Doctor giving his life in exchange for another. Christians believe that this is what Jesus did for every human being on the cross. Many wise Christians over the centuries have said that Jesus died for each of us as if there were only one of us. As the Doctor did for Wilfred, so Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf.

The temptations of unlimited power

Doctor Who often raises the question ‘how should good people wield power?’ The Doctor’s time machine gives him the ability to prevent all catastrophe and evil from ever occurring, yet often he refrains from doing so. At times his companions get angry with him for not using his almost limitless power to save, cure and free everyone throughout history. Once, a companion tries to coerce him into going back in time to prevent the death of her boyfriend. He frequently tries to explain that “some things have to happen this way.” There are fixed points in time that cannot be changed.

That may sound like a cheap explanation – an escape clause for the script writers. But sometimes the show goes deeper, and then we find out what happens when the Doctor gives in to the temptation to fix everything by force. In one episode, compelled by the desperate need of his closest friends, the Doctor for the first time engages in warfare. After a violent and bloody battle, he saves his friends, but it becomes clear that he has done so at the price of his innocence. When River Song arrives at the end, she accuses him of compromising his moral values to save his friends. He responds defensively:

Doctor: You think I wanted this? I didn’t do this. This… this wasn’t me!

River: This was exactly you. All of it. You make them so afraid. When you began, all those years ago, sailing off to see the universe, did you ever think you’d become this? The man who can turn an army around at the mention of his name? Doctor? The word for healer and wise man, throughout the universe. We get that word from you, you know. But if you carry on the way you are, what might that word come to mean? To the people of the Gamma Forests, the word “Doctor” means mighty warrior. How far you’ve come!

This powerful speech reveals two important things. First, using violence against evil is a path that leads to ever-increasing violence. Eventually the once innocent, pacifist Doctor has become a tyrant, imposing his will on the universe. In a similar way, the Gospel of Matthew describes how Jesus, after fasting for forty days in the desert, was visited by the Devil who tempted to use coercive power to establish his kingdom of justice and righteousness:

The devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ 

Where the Doctor gave in to temptation, Jesus resisted. He refused to impose his kingdom of peace by violence, because to do this is ultimately to worship a principle and force in direct opposition to God’s will and his ways. Instead of raising an army and conquering the world to save those he loves, Jesus chose the way of the cross. The path of self-sacrifice is painful and slow. But it is the only way to bring about an everlasting kingdom built, not on coercion, but on free and loving submission.

Secondly, River Song’s speech shows that the Doctor’s actions change the very meaning of his name. Will that name come to mean ‘mighty warrior’ instead of ‘healer’ or ‘wise teacher’? Likewise, those who bear the name ‘Christian’ have the power to determine what that name means to the world. The actions of Christians shape the meaning of the name ‘Christ’ to those around them. Christians do not always live in such a way as to make the name of Jesus mean what Jesus would have wanted. What does Jesus want his name to mean?

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