Cillian Murphy follows up his Oscar-winning Oppenheimer performance with another tour-de-force in Small Things Like These, a drama about Ireland’s horrific Magdalene laundries, whose placid surface conceals roiling anguish and fury.

Cillian Murphy went back to Ireland for his first film after “Oppenheimer.” He stars in and produces “Small Things Like These,” which is based on Claire Keegan's Booker Prize-nominated story about the Magdalene laundries in Ireland.

Cillian Murphy’s career clout has only expanded since being named Oscar’s Best Actor for “Oppenheimer. ” His low-key period Irish drama “Small Things Like These,” opening Friday, couldn’t be more

Cillian Murphy says "Small Things Like These," the Irish book his new film is adapted from, is a "beautiful, beautiful, perfect novella."

Murphy plays Bill with a sympathetic weariness that one initially attributes to the tough physicality of his work, but later identifies as his inner mental turmoil. His childhood trauma comes back with full force after the incident with the girl, evident through facial close-ups and several hand-scrubbing sequences that border on self-harming.

A quiet, meditative portrait of a small town's open secret, Small Things Like These sees Cillian Murphy go small, but no less affecting.