LITTLE BOY

Little Boy

Grade: B+

**Currently on Redbox**

Starring: Jakob Salvati, Emily Watson, David Henrie, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Michael Rapaport, Tom Wilkinson, Ted Levine, and Kevin James

Premise: An 8-year-old boy prays and hopes his faith alone can bring his beloved father back from World War II.

Rated PG-13 for a few scenes of war violence, language (including racial slurs), some intense moments, and emotional content

It’s kind of hard for me to know exactly what to make of Little Boy because I was half-asleep by the time it ended. Indeed, I spent most of the movie wishing it would end because I wanted to go to bed. That being said, I’ve nursed a grudging admiration for this little movie since I watched it, and it just won’t go away. Even though my eyes were itching from tiredness by the time the credits came up, I was invested enough that I actually wanted to see a little bit more.

Little Boy is a fictional story rooted in a simpler time, a classic era of American-ness (if you will), a time of righteous patriotism, newspaper-brandishing townsfolk on street corners, square little houses, and kids playing in the streets of one-stoplight towns. It revisits a time when going off to war was seen as an honor, and a duty, and when churches were packed on Sundays with everyone you knew. That church aspect figures prominently, as Mexican director Alejandro Monteverde’s film (he also co-wrote the screenplay with Pepe Portillo) is also a message movie, about believing in the face of incredible doubt and odds, and making repeated references to a Bible passage, Matthew 17:20, which reads: “Jesus replied, ‘Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.’” Appropriately for a movie that was written and marketed around the idea of that passage, Little Boy features a diminutive protagonist who’s looking to accomplish something huge—namely, willing his father home from the front lines of the Pacific War against the Japanese, and praying and working for God to pull off a miracle. Lovingly shot and performed with conviction, Little Boy is imperfect but it manages to not be silly.

It also manages to be memorable.

Plot

Called “little boy” by almost everyone for a reason, undersized 8-year-old Pepper Busbee (3-foot-9-inch actor Jakob Salvati) has relatively few troubles in life. He’s an imaginative little boy, reading about magic and making up adventures along with his childlike father (Michael Rapaport). He helps his dad and older brother, London (David Henrie), at the family car repair shop. He obeys and loves his stoic mom (Emily Watson). His only real trouble is that he’s picked on for his size, especially by nasty, towering bully Freddy Fox (Matthew Scott Miller). There's also a Japanese man in the town, Mr. Hashimoto (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), one who’s become a pariah given that he looks like the enemy, the Japanese troops of the war’s Pacific Theatre. Pepper’s not a big fan of his, either.

But then his father has to go off to war. Pepper, who can’t imagine life without his father, intends to do whatever he can to get his dad home safely, whether that’s trying to use a comic book musician’s tricks to protect him from afar, trying to will his father back, or even praying really hard about it. The town priest (Tom Wilkinson) notes the latter and encourages Pepper in it, and, after Pepper and London get in a spot of trouble patronizing Mr. Hashimoto, the priest encourages Pepper to do a good thing and befriend the mysterious man. Pepper tries, but life is suddenly much more complicated. The townspeople look down on him for associating with Hashimoto, his brother is getting into trouble, a local wife-less doctor (Kevin James) is making eyes at Pepper’s mom, and news updates about the war across the sea are bad more often than not.

What Works?

Thinking back on the Little Boy, what stands out to me most is the clear, vivid imagery. The colors—of hair, of clothes, of the houses and buildings in town, of the sky and the nearby ocean, of the effectively lived-in characters—really pop, aiding the film in seeming more timeless. The screenplay is solid, too—while clearly a “message movie”, Little Boy doesn’t try to shove any one religion down your throat, but encourages the power of belief and kindness and love (overall, it reminded me more of small-town tales of boyhood in the mid-1900s--like My Dog Skip, Simon Birch and even A Christmas Story—than overtly-Christian movies like Fireproof and Facing the Giants). Also, for a film mostly about a child, both the screenplay and the direction aren’t afraid to venture into heavier territory. Excerpts of dad’s war-time experiences are relatively bloodless but gritty and terrifying in their depiction, and the nuisance of the prejudice against Mr. Hashimoto threatens, at times, to turn into real danger. This level-headed approach to drama lends realism to a movie with hopeful ending some might be tempted to criticize.

Like I said, Little Boy isn’t silly—a big accomplishment for a message movie about a child who tries a hand at both magic and prayer. The absolute conviction of all the actors is what makes the movie, starting with little Jakob Salvati. Sure, the performance relies a little on pure cuteness, but there’s also an astonishing scene, in which Pepper weeps uncontrollably over thoughts of his possibly-dead father, that cuts to the core—such real, uninhibited tears are rare, even in the world of dramatic movies. Similarly-strong performances are given by Emily Watson and David Henrie as the caring mom and conflicted brother, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa makes a good impression in the obviously clichéd part of a wise old foreigner. A scene where Hashimoto sits quietly with Pepper to comfort him is one of the movie’s best moments. Then there’s the big “faith” scene with Tom Wilkinson’s priest, who, despite some slightly corny writing, makes an earnest, effective statement about faith that you’ll remember.

What Doesn’t Work?

It’s a little corny, to be sure—you have to embrace the sun-splashed naivete that allows townspeople to celebrate a little boy who’s allegedly won a distant war with just the effort of his will, or the idea that one moment of standing up to a much bigger, more popular bully in the schoolyard leads to no repercussions. Also Kevin James, the movie’s biggest name, is distractingly-cast and visibly struggles to play it straight. The movie ends abruptly as well, having created a vivid little world of characters and feeling and then ending immediately after the big climax—that was when I was ready to see a little more of how the characters related in light of their life-changing experiences. It’s one of a few places where the mostly-effective screenplay could use a little more detail.

Content

A movie called Little Boy? Content? Are you kidding me? There’s no hint of sex or nudity, but, as mentioned, a couple cuts to dad’s time at war in the Pacific are surprisingly-intense, as are some of the hostile townspeople’s run-ins with Mr. Hashimoto as he becomes Pepper’s friend. As stated, the emotional content hits hard when it comes, and there’s some profanity including multiple derogatory uses of “Jap” and “Nip”.

Bottom Line

Little Boy is a quaint little story with a big heart, effectively depicting experiences on the home front during a war through the eyes of a child. It’s a message movie, but not distractingly-so, reminding us all that we should value one another and stick up for one another. The cast—including the little boy of the title—is rock-solid in what is, at times, a pretty hard-hitting drama, and moments of adventure, humor, and genuine emotion make this a rewarding film.

Little Boy (2015)

Directed by Alejandro Monteverde

Screenplay by Alejandro Monteverde and Pepe Portillo

Rated PG-13

Length: 106 minutes