When Jake’s grandfather Max dies, his parents Brian (Greg Kinnear) and Kathy (Jennifer Ehle) inherit his home in Brooklyn, and as the family are struggling financially, they chose to leave their apartment in Manhattan and move in. At the funeral 13 year old Jake (Theo Taplitz) encounters Tony (Michael Barbieri) who is the same age, and who is there with his mother Leonor (Paulina García) who has been renting the store that is part of Max’s property for several years.
This re-location turns out to be much easier for Jake than his parents. He has always been quite a friendless loner and an 0dd fit at the select private school he been attending, but his new outgoing rather brash friend Tony immediately takes him out of his comfort zone as soon as they start hanging out together. Very soon this odd couple are inseparable and are spending every moment of their free time exploring Brooklyn neighborhoods whizzing around on skateboard and scooter.
Meanwhile Brian and Kathy are having to deal with the fact that Leonor has been renting the store from Max for her small dress shop for barely less than a fifth of the market value, and it soon becomes very apparent that raising the rent is not going to be an easy matter at all. Brian is an actor who can only get very low paying infrequent off-off Broadway roles, so psychotherapist Kathy has been the family breadwinner for years, and Leonor’s business has been struggling for years so any increase would probably be cause to shut down completely.
At first the adults are extremely polite to each other and Leonor soon realizes that Brian is slightly timid about pushing the issue too forcefully, so she neatly sidesteps it whenever the subject is raised. However Brian’s rather pushy sister Audrey (Talia Balsam) who shared the inheritance wants him to be more aggressive and assert their claim for the proper market rent. When he does just this, any trace of pleasantries between the upstairs owners and the downstairs tenant totally disintegrate and is replaced by a full scale row.
The two boys stuck on the sidelines are at appalled at both their parents intransigence and their animosity to each other, and make a vow to stop talking to them until they resolve the matter. Their friendship by this time has got so tight, it almost seems that it may even blossom on to another level. At school in an English class when asked to write a poem about someone he loves, it seems that Jake has thoughts of Tony, who actually started a fistfight in the school cafeteria when he gallantly chose to stand up for his best friend.
Tony is an aspiring actor and he hits on a girl at acting class which dispels the possibility that he at least is probably not gay. He wants Jake, a very talented artist, to transfer to La Guardia School For Performing Arts with him when they graduate from High School, but their parents stand-off may now endanger that and their other plans.
This wee gem from director and co-writer Ira Sachs (‘Love is Strange’) so perfectly captures the parents unhappy struggles through the eyes of their happy sons who are trying to deal with consequences of the drama which is considered too much of an adult matter for them to be allowed to contribute too. What Jake and Tony have together is nothing less than beautiful, and as Brian rather enviously tells Jake at one point, friendships like this do not come that easily later in life.
Stellar performances from the adult actors particularly from the normally fiery Chilean star Garcia who is always such a joy to watch, but it was the remarkable mature acting from young Taplitz and Barbieri that was so riveting and a sheer delight.
Little Men is a wonderful un-showy drama that so beautifully captures some of the effects of the reality of gentrification and how they impact us all and not just the grown-ups at the core.
