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We all have moments from our childhood that we’d like to do over. We wish we’d been stronger and more confident. We wish we’d made better choices. Outside the movies, there’s no way to change the past—but in Little, one woman has no choice but to return to the little girl that she once was.
Little follows narcissistic tech mogul Jordan Sanders (Regina Hall) as she’s forced to come to terms with her awkward 13-year-old self (Marsai Martin). In danger of losing her biggest client, Jordan finally snaps at the wrong person: a little girl who puts a spell on her, wishing to make her little again. The next morning, she wakes to find that she’s 13 again. Forced to return to the same middle school where she was bullied and humiliated as a kid, she has no choice but to let her assistant, April (Issa Rae), fill in for her at the office.
Of course, as Jordan and April find themselves in new and entirely uncomfortable roles, it leads to all kinds of shenanigans. And while Jordan gets a do-over on her disastrous youth, April is forced to find a new kind of strength while trying to keep the business from going under. Really, it’s not hard to see where this is all headed—because we’ve all seen it before. The body-switch movie is definitely nothing new, and it’s definitely been done better.
Not only is the story here entirely unsurprising, but the rest of the film is a mess, too. The characters are overplayed and exaggerated in an almost old fashioned, vaudevillian kind of way. Grown Jordan is ridiculous and purely villainous, shrieking and stomping and throwing things while verbally assaulting anyone who’s unfortunate enough to cross her path. And young Jordan is no better—just as selfish and entitled as her older self. Of course, there’s supposed to be a reason for the behavior, but it won’t really make anyone care about her transformation.
Admittedly, the same old story could possibly be overlooked if everything else had been done well. But, in addition to the painful acting and ridiculous characters, there are so many other nagging little issues, too—from terrible editing choices to the fact that Jordan’s client gives the company 48 hours to come up with a fresh idea, and they somehow translate that to three days. And, put together, it makes for a frustrating experience.
The overplayed story and the obnoxious characters are just the beginning of the problems for this body-swapping comedy. While the character ends up in a little body, the whole thing is a pretty big mess.
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