An unassuming man in 1980’s Ireland must grapple with his conscience in the face of an overwhelming moment of insight in Tim Mielants supremely confident adaptation of Claire Keegan’s Booker Prize-nominated 2021 novella. The setting is New Ross, Wexford, in the run up to Christmas, where coal merchant Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) is working hard to keep his clients supplied before for a hard winter sets in; a quiet, introspective man, he has a tender relationship with his wife Eileen (Eileen Walsh), and is devoted to their five daughters. Early one morning while making a deliver to the local convent, presided over by the imperious Sister Mary, the Mother Superior (Emily Watson), he makes a discovery that forces him to confront his past and the complicit silence of a town controlled by the Catholic Church.

Notes by David O’Mahony.