Little Men (2016)

August 5, 2016 (BR) • Drama • 85m

Overview

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.

Director

Ira Sachs

Writers

Ira Sachs, Mauricio Zacharias

Top Billed

Greg Kinnear

Keywords

new york city coming of age best friend brooklyn, new york city landlord tenant relationship dress shop life lessons past due rent middle schoolers

Where to watch

Free / Included

YouTube TV

Magnolia Selects Amazon Channel

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Buy

Top Billed Cast

Greg Kinnear

Brian Jardine

Jennifer Ehle

Kathy Jardine

Paulina García

Leonor

Michael Barbieri

Tony Calvelli

Theo Taplitz

Jake Jardine

Talia Balsam

Audrey

Maliq Johnson

Umar

Anthony A. Flamminio

Joey

Madison Wright

Julia

John Procaccino

Mr. Plummer

Mauricio Bustamante

Acting Teacher

Alfred Molina

Hernán

Ching Valdes-Aran

Pilar

Stan Carp

Sal Bartolini

Stella Schnabel

Nina

Yolonda Ross

Arkadina

Leah C. Gardiner

Director

Derek Johnson

Luke

Teeka Duplessis

Eva

Clare Foley

Sally

Renaldo Napolitano

Classmate

Elia Monte-Brown

Bianca

Chinasa Ogbuagu

Valentina

Alden Song

Club DJ

Bryan Webster

Park Ranger

Andy Karl

Man (uncredited)

Melanie Mahanna

Customer (uncredited)

Kevin D. McGee

Audience Member (uncredited)

Arthur J. Nascarella

Stu Gershman (uncredited)

Johnny Serret

Student (uncredited)

Crew

Ira Sachs

Director

Ira Sachs

Writer

Mauricio Zacharias

Writer

Joe Aliberti

Associate Producer

Meetu Chilana

Associate Producer

Grace Colby

Associate Producer

Joe Della Monica

Associate Producer

Patrick DePeters

Associate Producer

Tom Dolby

Executive Producer

Andrew Drabkin

Associate Producer

Dom Genest

Executive Producer

Barrie Golden

Associate Producer

Vanessa Haroutunian

Associate Producer

Matthew Helderman

Executive Producer

Bryan Hughes

Associate Producer

Cathleen Ihasz

Associate Producer

Nicole Ihasz

Associate Producer

Lucas Joaquin

Producer

Daniella Kahane

Executive Producer

Jisun Jamie Kim

Associate Producer

Lars Knudsen

Executive Producer

Joe Kobzan

Associate Producer

Christos V. Konstantakopoulos

Producer

David Kyle

Executive Producer

Jim Lande

Producer

Jeffrey Leving

Associate Producer

Mark Levinson

Executive Producer

Sophie Mas

Executive Producer

Michael Messmer

Associate Producer

Jonathan Montepare

Co-Producer

Tracy Scott Nadler

Associate Producer

Andy Pargh

Associate Producer

Melissa Pinsly

Executive Producer

Blythe Robertson

Executive Producer

Ira Sachs

Producer

Lourenço Sant'Anna

Executive Producer

Hugh Schulze

Executive Producer

Luke Taylor

Executive Producer

Rodrigo Teixeira

Executive Producer

L.A. Teodosio

Producer

Larry Tsai

Associate Producer

Jay Van Hoy

Executive Producer

Mandy Ward

Associate Producer

Walter J. Wiacek

Associate Producer

Franklin S. Zitter

Executive Producer

Dickon Hinchliffe

Original Music Composer

Óscar Durán

Director of Photography

Mollie Goldstein

Editor

Affonso Gonçalves

Editor

Avy Kaufman

Casting

Alexandra Schaller

Production Design

Eden Miller

Costume Design

Ramsey Scott

Art Direction

Emily Deason

Set Decoration

Veronica Lupu

Script Supervisor

Jeong Park

Still Photographer

Naomi Raddatz

Makeup Artist

Dani Broom-Peltz

Set Dresser

Lauren Crawford

Set Dresser

Andy Kris

Sound Re-Recording Mixer

Damian Volpe

Sound Re-Recording Mixer

Damian Volpe

Sound Designer

Dan Bricker

Sound Mixer

Ilya Abulkhanov

Main Title Designer

Reviews

Reno

⭐ 5/10

June 15, 2017

**Friendship or business!**

This is a pure drama. Like a real life event, though there's no documentary style narration influenced. Thematically very, very simple, and also the characters, but too flat when it comes to entertainment value. Of course, drama-films usually does not entertain its viewers, except for who are ardent fans of that genre. Apart from depicting the real life, sometimes they carry messages with them. But this film has no tick marks on any of those boxes. So it is a boring film if you pick it to watch when you're on the average or in the bad mood. I did not feel that way, just hinting out it could do that for others.

The storyline had no focal point. It is neither a children's film, nor about the grownups' issues. But kind of mix of both on a small scale with strong outcome. Pretty much like on the two topics it was developed on. One was the 'death' which initiated everything and followed by the 'shop' that helped to make further progress in the tale. So using these, the film characters bloomed. Even though, these topics come into play occasionally and in the meantime, the scenes were wasted or you can say it followed the character to their daily routine to fill the film runtime.

So what's that mean is the screenplay, which was not at its best. It does not follow the traditional film way on the character developments. Like I expected the friendship between two boys like how they find each other as to emerge a strong bond. That did not happen. It was just like I said in the real life, too casual and understandable.

The same goes for the adult characters as well. When they decide to handle the shop issue, it was like hesitation like any average concerned family does. So this film will be good if your life is/was close to the events in the film. Like either it is your friendship that tested or dealing the sensitive issue as a grown-up that affects deeply those concerned ones.

> ❝Once again, our warm, lovable, unwise father has left us a big mess and no instructions.❞

Now you might think what this film is all about. This is the story of the two families connected with a building. Opens with a small Manhattan family arriving in Brooklyn to conduct the last rite to their deceased father. They are received by another family who rented the shop in the ground floor. Both the family has the young boys of the same age and following the ceremony, the two become very close. But when their parents decide to sort out the shop issue, it's all fall hard on them and their friendship. The remaining is to reveal the outcome of whatever happened.

You might be familiar with the quote that goes like this, 'a friendship founded on business in better than a business founded on friendship'. Basically, that's where the film inspired from. But it expanded to two sets of the characters, between the youngsters and the adults. These two categories are exactly opposite in mindset. Youngsters usually does not care about money that involves friends, but for adults, money is a serious matter to handle. The 'business' is attached to the parents and the 'friendship' drawn between their children.

Now that's the complication involves as many people as to solve without affecting anybody. But most of the film was overwhelmed by scenes of other than this issue. They ignored to focus completely on where it had calibre. I felt the casting was the best thing happened in the film, particularly those boys. Alfred Molina, who played one of the main characters in the director's previous film was appeared here in a guest role for like a minute. The rest of them were decent as well, including Greg Kinnear.

The film was just under the 90 minutes, yet too slow paced narration. Does not fit for everyone to watch. Imagine if this film was played on the television, with all the commercial breaks, you won't able to finish it off. Not without patience, because it is already dull, and if you will run out that, that's it. A lot like a product for the film festivals and it did fared decently on those platforms, but surely some people would find it good. So now you might think what my stance is. I liked it, also didn't. An average film with a slipped away opportunity. I am not sure, but still feel like I want to suggest it.

_5/10_

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Little Men (2016)

Ira Sachs, Mauricio Zacharias

Where to watch

Top Billed Cast

Crew

Reviews

Reno

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