“A delicately crafted meditation on family and memory.”

There’s nothing quite like a family reunion, and whether you view them as an opportunity to reconnect with relatives in joyful, upbeat conditions, or as hopelessly intimidating experiences that cannot be over soon enough, there’s something intriguing about circumstances – whether formal or casual – where families gather for one reason or another. Zvonimir Jurić certainly leans towards the latter in Small Things, his poetic and evocative return to cinema after more than a decade, in which we are introduced to Anica and Irena, two sisters who, along with Irena’s children, have taken a trip to a remote island off the coast of Croatia where their father and brother Ivan reside. Their father has aged considerably and is evidently quite close to the end (a fact that the sisters only realise when seeing him in person), and Ivan has retreated from society, taking up life as a recluse on the island and trying to be as far from prying eyes as possible. Over the course of a few days the family engages in a range of conversations, which move from the usual pleasantries that come when reconnecting with relatives, to steadily becoming deeper and more difficult as the true purposes for their visit are made clear, especially when it becomes obvious that certain things need to be said before it is too late. A complex character study that attempts to condense a range of deeply compelling themes into a very small package, Small Things is a fascinating psychological drama that captures a specific kind of pain that is hard to accurately represent on screen without becoming overwrought, something that the director manages to avoid with this simple but captivating narrative.

There are several complex ideas embedded at the heart of Small Things that are very easy to spot, but much more difficult to discuss. This is the kind of contradiction on which the director builds his narrative, choosing specific themes in what proves to be one of the more hauntingly beautiful explorations of family we’ve seen this year, particularly on the subject of a group of people. They represent three different generations coming together, their meeting revealing years of history that has intentionally remained dormant, now uncovered as a result of everyone silently being in agreement that certain subjects should not remain buried indefinitely. It doesn’t take long to realise that there is a more sombre reason for the sisters to make this visit (particularly at the same time), because their father does not have much time left, and rather than living with the regrets of never attempting to work out their issues, they choose the more admirable path of resolution. The foundation of Small Things is the theme of mortality, and rather than treating it as a single tragic event, the story presents it as something that slowly reshapes the relationships between these characters, who are suddenly forced to confront regrets and work through their own complex emotions in an effort to seek forgiveness, even when it is not always required. Every character in this film carries their own version of a shared past, interpreting it differently based on their personal perspective, which allows the film to explore memory and the role it can play in forming our identities and our understanding of the surrounding world.

The title of Small Things is remarkably well-chosen, since this is a film that succeeds most when it understands that the best approach to such complex themes is not to attempt to say everything, but rather to focus on a few smaller, more detailed moments that ultimately connect people and bring them together with a shared goal, even if the journey there can be different for every one of them. The primary argument that Jurić is making with Small Things is that life’s greatest emotional reckonings are not always confronted directly, but rather manifest in smaller, more subtle ways – a gesture, glance, or even just a brief sentence can say more than any in-depth analysis ever could achieve. The director adopts an understated observational style that makes it feel as if the audience has wandered into this family reunion unexpectedly (especially since the film starts in media res – there are no discernible entries and exits amongst these characters), peering voyeuristically into their interactions with the kind of intimacy that helps us forge a personal bond with the characters, particularly as the hidden tensions begin to slowly surface. The deliberately measured pace mirrors the everyday lives of these people, each conversation unfolding naturally and being accompanied by non-verbal signals that make the story so much richer, especially in how it balances some uncomfortable conversations (beautifully written by the director in collaboration with Jurica Pavičić) with stretches of silence that have equal emotional weight, without ever having to rely on explosive confrontation. The whole cast deserves credit for how each one of them manages to convey decades of complicated history through the most restrained, subtle performances that come across as entirely organic, giving the film a sense of authenticity and preventing the story from becoming an overly sentimental affair, choosing instead to be a poignant meditation on family connections that is remarkably honest and deeply devastating.

Over the course of only eighty minutes, Small Things reveals itself to be a hauntingly beautiful chamber drama guided by an emotional complexity that emerges through its refusal to manufacture the kind of catharsis or easy resolutions that we often find in more melodramatic examinations of similar themes, choosing instead to draw on a subtle observational approach that prevents any kind of overwrought spectacle. The director follows each character through their routines and gives glimpses into their lives through the conversations that transpire between them, every interaction unlocking a new piece of the puzzle that constitutes this story, allowing us to get to know these people as more than just archetypes. The rich performances only grow more profound with each scene, the actors working closely with each other and the director to create the illusion of a real family undergoing some enormous challenges, with each one of them interpreting their shared past through different emotional lenses and drawing on memories in their own way. Small Things ultimately evolves into a delicately crafted meditation on family and memory, both of which are vital to its examination of the process of saying goodbye, which can be enormously challenging for even the most iron-willed individuals. A vulnerable, beautiful character study that ventures into the minds of each of these people, the film becomes a truly moving deconstruction of the human mind and the overwhelming challenges that come when navigating some truly difficult but inevitable experiences.