Little Men

classified PG
Film

Please note: This was screened in Oct 2016

Director
Ira Sachs
Cast
Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Ehle, Paulina García |
Details
82 mins, 2016, USA/Greece
“If Martin Scorsese was the quintessential auteur of New York in the 1970s and 80s and Spike Lee that of the late 80s and 90s , then Ira Sachs is gradually becoming the quintessential auteur of today’s New York –one of class inequality, and of relationships transformed by the changing city around them. He depicts this world with a clarity and generosity that lends it a richness far beyond what’s immediately on the screen.” Bilge Ebiri – Critic, New York Magazine.

Two New York boys fight to keep their parents’ personal business from sabotaging their connection in Ira Sachs’ (Love is Strange, Keep The Lights On) perfectly drawn and achingly sympathetic drama set against the gentrification of a Brooklyn neighbourhood.

13 yr old Jake (Theo Taplitz), a shy, thoughtful kid and the son of actor Brian (Greg Kinnear) and therapist Kathy (Jennifer Ehle), has recently moved into the upstairs apartment of a Brooklyn townhouse that they have inherited following the death of Jake’s grandfather. So it’s to everyone’s delight that Jake is befriended by outgoing teen Tony (Michael Barbieri); the son of an immigrant Chilean seamstress named Leonor (Paulina García, Gloria), who's been renting the store on the apartment’s ground floor for her small dressmaking business for several years. All are under pressure financially, but when Jake’s parents up the rent downstairs, Tony’s mother digs in. And when the battle over rent sharpens as Jake's parents threaten to evict Tony's mum if she doesn't pay up, the boys — rather than splitting along lines of family loyalty — give the adults the silent treatment and continue to forge their own inseparable bond.

Acutely observed, this is a compassionate parable of a New York increasingly defined by gentrification and financial precariousness. Understated and profoundly humane, this tale of platonic love depicts beautifully the difficulty of maintaining childhood innocence in the face of adult troubles and amidst the social divides of race, class and culture.


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