Finally caught up with Ira Sachs' LITTLE MEN, one of the finest films of 2016. A quiet study of a budding friendship and a cautionary tale of real estate market tugging away at the very essence of urban community, it's perhaps most fascinating as a double portrait of a father and a son: the former letting go of ambition and the latter just forming his grasp upon it. It's understated; it's not big game hunting when it comes to emotion -- and yet it leaves you transformed the way a movie like Irvin Kershner's LOVING (1970) did back in the day.
I highly recommend it (if only for Greg Kinnear's wonderful performance as a man whose sense of failure has beaten him to a pulp inside, and yet who never, ever lets it show to his loved ones -- except when he's on stage, doing the job he's being payed to do).
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