Review: A poignant tale of everyday drama in 'Little Men'
Review: A poignant tale of everyday drama in 'Little Men'
When a generous patriarch dies, the lives of two families are altered in Ira Sachs' beautifully poignant slice of life drama "Little Men ."
In the film, Brian Jardine (Greg Kinnear), a struggling actor, his wife, Kathy (Jennifer Ehle), a psychotherapist and the breadwinner of the family, and their 13-year-old son Jake (Theo Taplitz) uproot their Manhattan lives and move into Brian's late father's home in Brooklyn.
On the ground floor of the residence is a tiny store that sells handmade dresses.
Alone, it's a good story, but it's the very different-on-paper little men at the center, Jake and Tony, who give it that extra weight of tragedy, as they watch their parents unravel with greed and pride and vow to stop speaking to them until they work it out.
The adult actors are all excellent — Kinnear especially — delivering elegant lines from Sachs and his longtime co-writer Mauricio Zacharias (Love is Strange, ''Keep the Lights On) with a lived-in realism.
Little Men," a Magnolia Pictures release, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America for "thematic elements, smoking and some language.