Jake is a quiet, sensitive middle schooler with dreams of being an artist. He meets the affably brash Tony at his grandfather's funeral, and the unlikely pair soon hit it off. The budding friendship is put at risk, however, when a rent dispute between Jake's father, Brian, and Tony's mother, Leonor, threatens to become contentious.
Greg Kinnear Jennifer Ehle Paulina García Michael Barbieri Theo Taplitz Talia Balsam Maliq Johnson Anthony A. Flamminio Madison Wright John Procaccino Mauricio Bustamante Alfred Molina Ching Valdes-Aran Stan Carp Stella Schnabel Yolonda Ross Leah C. Gardiner Derek Johnson Teeka Duplessis Clare Foley Renaldo Napolitano Elia Monte-Brown Chinasa Ogbuagu Alden Song Bryan Webster Andy Karl Melanie Mahanna Kevin D. McGee Arthur J. Nascarella Show All…
Ira Sachs Christos V. Konstantakopoulos Lucas Joaquin Jonathan Montepare Bryan Hughes Vanessa Haroutunian Cathleen Ihasz Nicole Ihasz Joe Aliberti Patrick DePeters L.A. Teodosio Jim Lande Tracy Scott Nadler Walter J. Wiacek Mandy Ward Jisun Jamie Kim Joe Kobzan Meetu Chilana Grace Colby Joe Della Monica Andrew Drabkin Barrie Golden Jeffrey Leving Michael Messmer Andy Pargh Larry Tsai
Lars Knudsen Jay Van Hoy Rodrigo Teixeira Lourenço Sant'Anna Matthew Helderman Tom Dolby Luke Taylor Daniella Kahane Sophie Mas Blythe Robertson Hugh Schulze Dom Genest Mark Levinson David Kyle Melissa Pinsly Franklin S. Zitter
Race Point Films Faliro House Productions Charlie Guidance Productions Parts & Labor Water's End Productions RT Features
Thank You for Being Honest, The Silent Treatment, Brooklyn Village, Verano en Brooklyn, Melhores Amigos, Homenzinhos, Μικροί Κύριοι, 有你的布魯克林, Маленькие мужчины, Mali mężczyźni, Мали људи, Маленькі чоловіки, Малки мъже, Küçük Adamlar, Kis emberek, 小大人, 리틀 맨
USA
Sundance Film Festival
Germany
Berlin International Film Festival
USAPG
DenmarkA
Portugal
Germany
Greece
Netherlands6
Brazil
Netherlands6
Brazil
Denmark
Germany
Greece
Netherlands
Portugal
USA
It takes 12 minutes and 23 seconds to run from Jake’s apartment to Tony’s, but there’s an entire world in the space between their two Brooklyn homes. Thirteen-year-old Jake (a sensitive and severely empathetic Theo Taplitz) is a white fourth or fifth generation American kid whose grandfather — the longtime owner of a small apartment building — has just passed away. Tony (Michael Barbieri, a pint-sized Robert De Niro) is the son of a Chilean immigrant, and his mother — a sharp seamstress played by “Gloria” star Paulina García — has rented the retail space on the ground floor of that same apartment building for as long as anyone can remember.
38/100
Might have had an extreme reaction here, because this happened to be the first film I watched after the election and the last thing I wanted was to find myself sympathizing almost entirely with the white people. Nor does this appear to be a problem that anyone else shares, which troubles me.* No doubt most folks zero in on Sachs' intention, which is perfectly clear: He means to create a thorny, irresolvable situation, with neither party in the right and the kids caught in the crosshairs. Laudable, and it's safe to say that I'm receptive to that idea in broad outline, given that A Separation is my favorite film of the century so far. But...Leonor is just a horrible…
Ira Sachs makes films about that guy sitting next to you on the plane, the woman in front of you in line and those kids crossing the street in front of you. Real people with real problems. This sentiment is so often abused, screamed from the mountaintops whenever a film doesn't tap into any supernatural or starkly unrealistic storytelling tropes. But Little Men makes it it's credo. This story, a muted piece about identity (sexual and otherwise), gentrification and the deep divide between a parent and their child. It's crushing in it's quietness, uplifting in it's levity. The 12 minute and 23 second journey between the two boy's respective homes may as well be endless with how much Sachs inserts…
Proud that a fellow Jew had the
ḥutspâ (חֻצְפָּה) to make this film.
Fucking gentrification, man.
Growing up, friendship and how adults fuck us up. The scene where Jake rushes out to explain to his parents how to avoid raising the rent on his friend Tony's mother's shop broke my heart. Unsentimental and beautifully played.
greg kinnear is so boring he is the acting equivalent of that tweet about white people not using any spices in cooking and it's the photo of the plate of plain boiled chicken and corn
A film about the friendship between two young people being affected by the murky complications of the relationship between their parents. A strong premise and a beautiful friendship drew me in, but elements of this conflict feel far too repetitive over time and it never becomes as layered as it needs to be. Maybe emphasizing more elements of the young friendship would have done so and placing the tenant/landlord story moreso in the background could have helped with intrigue. The end ultimately fizzled into something far too small for me.
So Sachs follows up remaking Make Way for Tomorrow, by sort of remaking I Was Born, But…, that is a man of great taste (if also someone who just setting himself impossible standards). This one is a lot stronger than Love is Strange probably because people reacting to mundane yet impossible situations is something that suits Sachs strengths very well. As often with him, there’s something theoretical about the basic set-up that is very written, but this got offset both by the focus on the kids and the interplay between Kinnear’s nice guy smugness and Garcia’s insensitive harshness.
Director Ira Sachs proved to be a keen, sensitive storyteller of the middle class New Yorkers. His singular if not, intimate introspective of these struggling middle class is profoundly perceptive and grounded. However, seeing my third Sachs film—following his sensitive LGBT dramas Keep the Lights On, and Love Is Strange—there is something minor and missing amidst the simplistic nature of his films. Little Men gravitates in its own constructed world and stays there. It never reaches out to the world at some extent. The film is really owned by the relationship of these two strong-willed boys and how they navigate life’s disparity as both of their parents clash on property.
There is the undeniable power of sensitivity in this that…
Scavenger Hunt 58 - January 2020 #2 out of 31
24. Watch a movie where an actor was born in or after the year 2000 and plays a prominent role.
2020 First Time Watches Ranked
“One of the hardest things to realize when you're a child is that your parents are people, too. You understand that? They care about things, they make mistakes, and they try to do what they think is the right thing to do.”
One of the cruelest parts of life is the realization that it insidiously extinguishes the bright-eyed optimism of your youth bit by bit as you grow older. Friendships are often casualties of time but, in a twist of irony, they can often be…
Added to: 2016 Ranked
Added to: People-Being-People List
Crossing this off of my Little Hype-a-de-Hype List
Honest. Relatable. True.
Those three words exactly describe my experience with Ira Sachs’ new film Little Men. As I already hoped and expected the story about two young friends, had a plot as loose as anything. Just like with Sachs’ last film Love is Strange, the driving aspect of the film was the portrayal of relations between the characters and with that, fortunately, enough was already happening. Though at first there doesn’t seem to be that much going on in the lives of the two young leads Jake and Tony (played by Theo Taplitz & Michael Barbieri respectively). They go to school, they have their…
