Movie Review - Bible Based: Little

This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.

Atlanta's Technology Empress gets turned into a tadpole.

Plot Overview

Atlanta, Georgia, 1993. Windsor Middle School. Science minded colored girl Jordan Sanders (Marsai Martin) is humiliated and debilitated as she's giving a science demonstration of the conservation of mechanical energy. What she set in motion comes back to hit her with a vengeance, aided by a bully's gentle push. Her parents advise her that the best way to handle bullies is to grow up to become their boss.

Present day. Jordan Sanders, 38, (Regina Hall) is all one could imagine in an unreasonable and overbearing black boss of her own company, Jordan Sanders, International (JSI.) She relentlessly badgers her neighbor, her employees, the parking valet, and the donut stand man.

The latter's little girl Stevie (Marley Taylor) being a “chocolate Hogwart” hits her with “black girl magic” regressing her age back to 13 overnight. Soon, Agent Bea (Rachel Dratch) of Child Protective Services, to whom all blacks look alike, forces her to re-enroll at Windsor Middle School where instead of being “the new alpha of the class” she is the new girl in school. She's positioned like a Michael Palmer character for whom, “It's tough getting bossed around when you're used to being the capo del capo” (299).

Ideology

Jordan's fly-by-night Negro boyfriend Gary uses a purloined key to let himself into her apartment to be surprised to find a little girl there whom he knew nothing about. Her minder, big Jordan's personal assistant (PA) Negress April (“with an ‘A’ for available”) Williams (Issa Rae) checks him out and says, “A man who finds a wife finds a good thing. That's the Bible.” The reference is, (Prov. 18:22) “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.” The only man and wife shown in the whole film are little Jordan's borderline black parents who do make a handsome couple. The only favour a wife brings to her man is monetary when a client's grandmother adds her own millions to her client's grandfather's investment. As for either April or mature Jordan being good wife material, I don't think so. White men get intimidated by strong white executive women; one can hardly imagine a black man feeling any different. However, he's written into the script, so there.

The application is probably more subtle. Fly-by-night Gary gets all gooey and domestic when he sees Jordan as a breeder, a single mom. It's somewhat along the lines of what George F. Gilder has written:

Without a durable relationship with a woman, a man's sexual life is a series of brief and temporary exchanges, impelled by a desire to affirm his most rudimentary masculinity. But with love, sex becomes refined by selectivity, and other dimensions of personality are engaged and developed. The man himself is refined, and his sexuality becomes not a mere impulse but a meaningful commitment in society, possibly to be fulfilled in the birth of specific children legally and recognizably his. (35)

In ancient times when the proverb was written, that undoubtedly held true, and it still holds true today.

(Prov. 18:23) “The poor useth intreaties; but the rich answereth roughly.” Rich grown up Jordan answered roughly and her richer client was even more curt. Her underpaid employees grovelled and her child self was further put in place by her de facto guardian April who insisted, “I like kids to have old school manners.” This is even more poignant when one considers the way of life that was “Gone With the Wind” when at the end of that movie, Atlanta burned, the city where this movie is set. Blacks in the old Atlanta would never have spoken so disrespectfully to Whites as they do here.

(Prov. 18:24) “A man that hath friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” Newly belittled Jordan must find herself friends at the reject table in the school lunch room, which is good, because before that she never made any. This new skill is brought forward to her adult life where she makes a friend of April.

friendship hierarchy dating / friendship hierarchies
There are friends closer than sibling ties, called boyfriends/girlfriends, and we see little Jordan crossing that line with a too intimate hug with big Jordan's boyfriend Gary. There's something to be learned from this encounter, which applies to dating. Friends require an investment, the greater the investment the closer the friendship. This results in fewer intimates than acquaintances and so on. If one decides to cross the platonic barrier only with a best friend first, she risks messing up a good friendship if they do not click physically. Better it is to date from one's pool of acquaintances of whom one has plenty and won't miss the occasional loss.

Production Values

“” (2019) was directed by Tina Gordon Chism. It was written by Tracy Oliver and Tina Gordon Chism. It stars Regina Hall, Issa Rae, and Marsai Martin. Martin did an astounding job of portraying a woman in a girl's body: her whole bearing said adult.

MPAA rated it PG–13 for some suggestive content. It has a great soundtrack. The Windsor School mascot was the wolf, the female of whose species is called a “bitch” as a matter of vocabulary. The term can be applied to (some) women, but, of course, it was not so applied here, even though she deserved it in spades. They also resisted the urge to slip in the expression, “bigger nigger.” Political correctness trumps facility with language.

An Alexa knock off device was being beta tested under the rubric HomeGirl. The reason why Siri, and then Alexa, talk with a female voice is people carry too strong an association of a male voice in a computing device with dangerous HAL of “2001, A Space Odyssey.” HomeGirl gets around that by beginning with the letter ‘H’ as in Hal, ending with the same letter ‘L’ as HAL, and HAL uses the vowel ‘a’ from Alexa in the middle. HomeGirl—the black gang term homeboy (-girl) originally just meant good neighbor—is introduced in this picture next to a scene where a neighbor child is “going through a transition” from being a boy to a girl. HomeGirl is a tranny. This avoids sexism in making them all female voiced.

The lunch room reject table is peopled with: a girl of oriental race who was too smart in class, a Caucasian boy who stutters, and a clueless colored classmate. Jordan joins them, who has an age identity issue. If an Oscar comes out for political correctness, I'm sure “Little” will receive a nomination.

Review Conclusion w/ Christian Recommendation

“Little” is a chick flick written and directed by women and featuring women in it. I found it humorous though not as funny as Tom Hanks in “Big.” Hanks played an age-progressed boy, and he milked it for all it was worth. “Little” gets too cute by half with political correctness, enough to create an unease that interferes with its comedic delivery. In my opinion. Some people may like it.

Movie Ratings

Action Factor: Weak action scenes. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years with guidance. Special effects: Well, at least you can't see the strings. Video Occasion: Good for Groups. Suspense: Predictable. Overall movie rating: Three stars out of five.