REVIEW: Little

Courtesy of Universal

In a weird coincidence, two body transformation comedies are hitting theaters within a week of each other. Last weekend, a kid was bestowed with the power to turn into an adult superhero in Shazam! This weekend, a woman in her late-30s finds herself back in her middle school body in the goodhearted but unexpectedly bawdy Little.

Those basic premises have only surface level similarities, however. To be honest, the most striking aspect of Little might be its fascinating origin. Marsai Martin, the child actress who got her start stealing scenes on ABC’s sitcom Black-ish, pitched her idea for the film – basically a reverse Big – to Universal when she was just 10 years old. The studio bought her pitch and Martin helped shepherd it through the often soul-killing development process.

As a result, the actress – now 14 – has become the youngest executive producer behind a major studio film. What’s more, her enthusiasm for the project attracted a host of talented comedic performers including Regina Hall, Issa Rae, Tone Bell, Mikey Day, Justin Hartley and Rachel Dratch. What’s more, Universal is so happy with the finished product that Martin’s production company recently signed a development deal to create new projects for the studio. How’s that for a success story?

The premise of Little won’t win any awards for originality, but it’s fun to watch the cast bring a different perspective to a familiar tale. In a brief prologue set in the early 1990s, young Jordan Sanders (Martin) is a bright student who caves under the pressure of bullying and decides to change her personality to avoid being hurt. Fast-forward to the present day and Jordan (Hall) has become an angry, abusive tech industry mogul.

April Williams (Rae) is her long-suffering assistant and the frequent target of her venomous rampages. She’s good at shielding others in the company from the full impact of Jordan’s mistreatment, but she has dreams of taking on a bigger role in the company. She gets the opportunity when a magical spell causes Jordan to wake up in the body of her middle school self.

While they try to figure out how to reverse the spell, Jordan has to go back to middle school and April takes charge of the office in her absence. It turns out that the solution to this weird predicament involves both characters learning how to grow and become better people. I know, right? I’m just as shocked as you are.

Kidding, of course. I actually enjoyed the comforting predictability of Little. Knowing where the plot was going from the start allowed me to focus on other enjoyable aspects of the film, especially the terrific cast. Martin carries the entire movie on her shoulders and it’s a star-making performance.

Frequent readers know one of my biggest cinematic pet peeves is overzealous child actors who deliver every line like it’s going to win them an Oscar. Martin is the exact opposite of that. Every bit of dialogue, no matter how ridiculous, sounds totally natural; that’s a borderline impossible task, but she makes it seem effortless.

Rae’s standing in the industry has been on the rise for a while now thanks to her YouTube series Awkward Black Girl and her HBO show Insecure, but I’ve got a feeling this will be the breakthrough performance that makes mainstream audiences go, “Whoa, who is this?” She’s funny, she’s gorgeous (that smile!) and she’s great at pivoting between the heightened absurdities of the film’s world and the more grounded emotional truth of her character.

Hall (who delivered a career-best performance in last year’s indie Support the Girls) is clearly having a blast in the bookend sections as the Scrooge-esque adult Jordan. She gets to chew scenery like crazy and demonstrate her knack for physical comedy. With one jarring, nasty exception, she’s able to smooth Jordan’s jagged edges by simultaneously evoking the young, brokenhearted middle schooler who assumed this awful persona as a defense mechanism.

Still that exception is a big one. She fires off a shockingly transphobic joke that comes out-of-nowhere and feels like the vestigial remains of a far meaner screenplay (credited to Tracy Oliver and director Tina Gordon Chism) that got toned down somewhere along the way. The character eventually recovers from this misstep, but it definitely took a few minutes for the movie to find its momentum again (to me, at least).

In fact, there are several other tonally jarring moments scattered throughout Little, although the others involve Martin – primarily the juxtaposition of her character’s adult mentality and her childlike stature. As a result, more than a few comedic sequences end up feeling more creepy than funny.

Those include a moment where young Jordan looks in the mirror and mourns the loss of her breast implants; an interaction between the middle schooler and her hunky teacher (Hartley, from NBC’s This Is Us); a drunken sing-along at a fancy restaurant; and a confusing exchange involving a hug from adult Jordan’s kindhearted boyfriend. Almost all of these scenes feature choppy editing around the punchlines, prompting me to wonder if the MPAA required some trimming to avoid an R rating since they involve alcohol, sexual innuendo and a child.

Even some of the movie’s “less” risqué jokes hit the PG-13 barrier almost hard enough to break it, a shame considering the film’s admirable themes would otherwise be perfect for a tween audience. Parents, let me reiterate: I strongly advise you to see the film first before bringing your kids. Still, despite my constant questioning of who Little is for – preteens or grownups? – its mostly genial nature and solid performances make it worth checking out.

Little is rated PG-13 for some suggestive content.

Grade: B-