Were I in a less generous mood, Little would make my annual bottom 10 list – or at least the dishonorable mentions. After all, there’s a lot to dislike about this film: it doesn’t make any sense, it invests in several undeveloped plot points, and requires the audience to sympathize with a comically irredeemable protagonist. Honestly, asking us to root for Jordan Sanders (Regina Hall as an adult, Marsai Martin as a teen) is like asking us to find the redemptive qualities in Lucius Malfoy or Cruella de Vil. There is always gonna be part of me that questions: “Why do you get a shot at redemption?”
However, I am in a generous mood, and I wanted –however unrealistic and ill defined- to see Little Jordan grow and learn and at least be nicer to her personal ottoman, April (Issa Rae). And, gee, this is a film in which a 38-year-old woman turns into her 13-year-old self, so how much explanation was I counting on, anyway?
Jordan is a beast. Let’s start there. Self-made small-company owner and CEO, she is a terrible boss on the order of: if she keeps this up, we should expect her to be visited by the ghost of Christmas past (on holiday, of course). The exaggerations are amusing: Jordan needs her slippers to be exactly the designated amount of centimeters removed from the bed so that her feet do not touch the floor when she wakes. Heaven help you if those slippers are two centimeters off. Later, we catch Jordan watching The Wiz in full “rapt with Evilline” mode as her workplace inspiration. (For The Wiz impaired, Evilline is the red queen villainess ogre.) Comic as Jordan’s domineering ugly is, I was all set to loathe her, young or old, until her biggest client shows up. In real life, the “big client” probably doesn’t show up at your place of business unannounced, sit in your chair, call the shots, and then “do you the favor” of telling you in person they’re going elsewhere, but they could, couldn’t they? Especially with a small firm. Yeah, once the film put the conflict in terms of a bigger bully, I can start rooting for the Little bully. I guess.
So while Jordan is busy chasing a donut truck off the company driveway…”must I do everything around here, people?!”…a donut child layered in powdered sugar pulls out a plastic wand and wishes Jordan small again. And before you know it, big Jordan has turned into her tween Slytherin self. And then we get to experience a whole new and more adorable level of how miserable Jordan can be.
Being a seasoned adult, I have a much different take on spontaneously changing age. While I would love to be young again and maybe get it right this time, or, heck, just to enjoy doing things my body ain’t so good at anymore, the trade-off is daunting. Lawdy if I want to be in grade school a second time. Ugh. The homework, the cliques, the random musts, the grand tributes to petty, and all paced by an inability to own more than the smallest of decisions. You might find that comforting; it’s my personal Hell. Well … that and constantly being stuck in airports.
Body switching movies are always kinda fun … even bad ones, like Little. This film didn’t break any new ground, give some loving insight, or even give us a single scene one might find IRL, but it did genuinely want a stone-hearted woman to learn empathy and it genuinely rooted for the underdog, even if it meant raining on a few parades to get us there. From man candy to corporal punishment, the list of things I didn’t especially care for about Little doesn’t stop after a dozen, but as the film is watchable and had its heart in the right place, I’ll give it a break for now. Fair warning: I’m going to crucify Little Two: Too Little. Don’t go there.
♪The place where I come from is a penthouse
I own the place; I call the shots
But uh oh, what happened to me?
I’m now a teen
I’ll be stretching my mouth to accept some dentistry
I’ll have no choice, I’ll play dodge ball
And it’s shitty, so so shitty
I’ll have to eat slop with every teen bop, so depressed on my on
And I will pray to a big God that I get to adult again
Small time
I can’t drive or drink liquor
Small time
Every remote has kid blocker
Small time
So much pain out of life
Small time
I’ve got to end this cycle♫
Rated PG-13, 109 Minutes
Director: Tina Gordon
Writer: Tina Gordon, Tracy Oliver
Genre: Big, only less
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Misunderstood tweens
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Their bullies
♪ Parody Inspired by “Big Time”
