April 28th, 2015 
James Shotwell 
Film: Little Boy
Starring: Jakob Salvati, Emily Watson, Michael Rapaport
Directed by: Alejandro Monteverde
The road to mediocre cinema is paved with good intentions, and Little Boy is yet another example of what happens when a good idea is made nearly unwatchable thanks to lackluster execution.
Little Boy is not exactly a fairy tale, but it certainly tries to frame itself as one. Pepper (Jakob Salvati), otherwise known to the people in his tiny coastal town as ‘Little Boy,’ is a small, eight-year-old child with a big imagination. He loves his life and all the people in it, especially his father (Michael Rapaport) with whom he shares many fantastic imaginary adventures. When the film begins everything is perfect, but news of the second World War soon leads to heartache as every family is tasked with sending one young man off to fight. Pepper’s brother is unable to enlist due to his flat-footedness, so their father takes his place. It’s a decision that weighs heavily on the family, especially Pepper, but his faith that his father will return home gives him hope for the future.
One day, a traveling magician invites Pepper on stage to help move a glass coke bottle. It’s the kind of basic trick any young magician learns to master, but for the people in Pepper’s small town it’s as real as anything they have seen before. Even Pepper is surprised by his newfound ‘talent,’ and soon he sets to using his powers to make his dad return from the war.
There is a beautiful story about a child’s love for their father at the heart of Little Boy, and at times its sincerity is so palpable even those who hate their dad may be moved to feel something other than disdain for the man who brought them into this world, but the film leans too heavily on sappy dialogue and well-meaning, but poorly executed attempts to draw parallels between the story and far more famous yarns to ever deliver anything worthy of recommendation. It’s not that the film doesn’t work, per se, it just doesn’t work in a way that has any kind of widespread appeal. It’s a big story with big possibilities, but from the tacky narration in the opening moments straight through to the very end it’s all so clean and hokey you never truly feel engaged and that is possibly the biggest crime of all.
What I believe Little Boy aims to do is share a story from the perspective of a child who believes the entire universe revolves around them. That is something we can all relate to in one way or another as we have all been a young and naive child. When the film sticks to that idea the majority of the events on screen, while haphazardly put together, more or less work. They never excel, and they certainly don’t raise the bar for uplifting storytelling across the board, but they work enough to make things watchable. Not enjoyable, mind you, but watchable nonetheless.
The problems arise when Little Boy loses its way while dealing with side stories and character interactions that do nothing to further the central narrative. It’s as if the filmmakers felt giving you the story of a child longing for their absent parent was not emotionally manipulative enough, so they decided to give everyone on screen something to pine after instead. I can see the appeal of this idea in theory, as it could help to further express the idea of hope and the power having it gives you, but when applied to the story the film is attempting to tell it causes more digression than anything else.
The cast, while credible on paper, deliver a mixed bag of performances. Michael Rapaport showcases a strong set of rarely utilized skills as Pepper’s father. His delivery suits the script better than anyone else on screen, despite the fact his casting is as absurd as anyone else. Kevin James plays a therapist without the slightest hint of Blart-ness to his being, and the results are the antithesis of everything Rapaport managed to muster. Emily Watson also appears, though she is just as underutilized as every other good thing in the film.
Somewhere scattered across the hard drive used to edit Little Boy (aka digital cutting room floor) lies a potentially great movie, but unfortunately that is not the final product currently screening nationwide. That feature, while good in every sense of the word with its intentions, is far too wishy washy to be endearing or entertaining. It’s as bland as off-brand vanilla, and just as satisfying.
GRADE: D-
Review written by: James Shotwell Follow @utgjames
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