Rent Little (2019)

Little review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Little makes hardly any effort to distance itself from the fact that it is essentially reverse Big. It’s a film that lays its farcical gimmick on thick, exaggerating everything around the story of one woman being shrunk down to remember what it was like to be a kid again. And while there are a handful of scenes that are hilarious on paper, the film leaves a little more to be desired, begging for just one more punchline or extra dose of insanity to make it the great comedy it could’ve been.

We’re introduced to Jordan Sanders (Regina Hall) as the most shrewd of businesswomen. She manages an app developing organization that seems to have been built with the intent of being an openly artistic workplace. That seems to have changed now when she walks into the office and everyone disperses to look busy. Why her workplace looks like this, however, seems a little astounding given that we know about her past. The film begins by stating that Jordan was once a science-loving nerd during her elementary school years but that bullies pushed her into a cynical lifestyle. I can just imagine her staff begging to have an office with bagels.

Her assistant is April Williams (Issa Rae), a meek woman who hopes to pitch her own application one day. After all, it’s been five years and one would think she would get some say. But not when she is finding herself in a constant state of bitterness trying to sell her applications to a cocky CEO who tries to speak jive and talks about pulling himself up by his bootstraps. He’s so full of himself that he stacks the deck on the Trump references; forget one million dollars, he had a five million dollar loan that he considers a humble start.

Anyway, Jordan pisses off a kid from a food truck and is then cursed the next day to be a kid, now in the form of Marsai Martin. All the expected jokes come racing towards the screen. Child services stop by and Jordan needs April’s help to act as her guardian. Jordan ends up going to school and is dismayed by the food and social structure. Jordan tries to come on to her handsome male teacher and this creepy subplot thankfully goes nowhere. She does, however, drink some booze and proceed to sing in a ritzy bar that is more applauding than appalling to the patrons.

Little has a lot of funny scenes but never quite feel like the laugh-out-loud moments they could have and should have been. It also doesn’t help where it feels like the film was diced up in several scenes that don’t have much of a flow. For example, in one scene where the kid Jordan and April are having lunch, they slowly ease into having hard drinks. The film then cuts to Jordan dancing on the bar with April turning her head from the table to be shocked at her behavior. How did April not see this? What was left out to make this scene more whole and believable? I couldn’t help but wonder with the almost-there humor if just a few extra seconds tacked onto each scene could narrowly make it a better comedy.

I like a lot of the assembly behind Little was also frustrated it never took off in its farcical plot. It needed to be just a tad more absurd and bold, to take charge as the best Big knock-off in the past few decades. With such additions as a preppy bully and a goofy boy-toy sidekick, one would think there would be more to play within such a scenario aside from the predictable bits of silly gags. Don’t expect a lot from Little.