Little Men, 2016.
Directed by Ira Sachs.
Starring Greg Kinnear, Paulina García, Jennifer Ehle, Theo Taplitz, Michael Barbieri, Talia Balsam and Alfred Molina.
SYNOPSIS:
A new pair of best friends have their bond tested by their parents’ battle over a dress shop lease.
Ira Sachs has an astute awareness that his films aren’t earth shattering, and they’re not supposed to be. They’re about the minutiae of middle class interaction, they tackle subjects; gentrification, marriage equality with such deft subtlety it’s easy to forget they are big ideas in his little films.
Little Men, his quietly brilliant follow-up to Love Is Strange, tackles gentrification by not tackling gentrification, instead, it works as a backdrop to a touching study of friendship between two young boys as their parents struggle with the financial demands of modern New York living.
After the death of his grandfather, Jake (Theo Taplitz) finds friendship with Tony (Michael Barbieri), a precocious Beastie Boy of a New Yorker. Jake’s parents (Brian – Greg Kinnear at a career best and Kathy – Jennifer Ehle, also impressive) inherit the building in which Tony’s mother Leoner (Paulina Garcia) runs a small clothes shop and with pressure from Brian’s sister (Talia Balsam), begin to question as to whether rent should be raised.
In playing itself so naturally, there’s a certain atmosphere of intrusion, as if the audience have happened on a family argument. Where conflict is divisive, Sachs smartly never takes sides, choosing instead to focus on the friendship between children as-unknowingly-the world around them begins to crumble. At any moment of high drama, focus is fast moved to an inconsequential, if beautifully observed moment between Jake and Tony.
Michael Barbieri is a total revelation; with his thick Italian New York accent and his erratic, larger-than-life ticks, he resembles a young Al Pacino – his reaction to being turned down at a children’s only rave moves from hilarious to heart-breaking in a single beat. Lingering in the background is an ever-constant tension as to whether their friendship is more than platonic: Tony, although at a different school, defends Jake against bullies resulting in a blow to the face whilst Jake, tasked with writing a poem on someone with whom he loves, seems to think of Tony.
In the background throughout is a relationship between Brian and his deceased father; a relationship we come to understand was largely fractured. Leonor, at the height of conflict, suggests Brian’s father thought her as more a part of the family and was embarrassed by his son. Greg Kinnear, at his absolute best, simply looks tired, as if the very weight of the world sits on his shoulders.
In fact, the film is far more about the fleeting nature of relationships than that of gentrification. Brian to Jake declares, “friendships don’t come so easily later in life,” which is reflected in a final, heart-breaking flourish.
Upon first viewing, the rather stark view of gentrification has a strange, almost anti-immigrant feel to it-the Italian family forced out by the all-powerful white American. Yet as the film lingers in the memory, it only furthers the ultimate devastation late on.
Little Men has a quiet, dignified confidence supported by a series of beautifully natural performances. A profound, deeply moving study of childhood.
SEE ALSO: Read our interview with Little Men director Ira Sachs
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Thomas Harris
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