Lit­tle

This com­e­dy holds the dis­tinc­tion of hav­ing the youngest exec­u­tive pro­duc­er in the his­to­ry of mov­ing pic­tures in 14-year-old Mar­sai Mar­tin. The young actress first had the idea for the film at the ten­der age of 10, hav­ing just seen the Tom Han­ks vehi­cle Big, and sug­gest­ed to Kenya Bar­ris (cre­ator of her hit tele­vi­sion show Black-ish) that he pro­duce a nar­ra­tive­ly invert­ed, gen­der-flipped and race-bent reboot. So he did! Isn’t show­biz grand?

Suf­fice it to say that any­one walk­ing out of this film will not be sur­prised to learn that it is the brain­child of an actu­al child. A grade-schooler’s touch is evi­dent in a premise that con­cedes its deriv­a­tive roots in its own title, thin-gru­el mes­sag­ing about the impor­tance of not being a meanie (or was it to always be true to your­self?), and such unabashed trend-chas­ing that audi­ences five years from now will be whol­ly baf­fled. Indeed, view­ers in the present day may be con­fused by viral-meme danc­ing in ref­er­ence to Fortnite.

But a rick­ety script and autopi­lot direc­tion can­not quite sink a film buoyed by the well-honed com­ic instincts of its lead­ing tri­umvi­rate. Regi­na Hall plays a tech start-up HBIC in the vein of Pra­da-wear­ing dev­ils past, sink­ing her incisors into the recre­ation­al cru­el­ty she barks at her staff.

Bear­ing the brunt of her abuse is long-suf­fer­ing assis­tant April, await­ing the day when she can prove her worth as cre­ative per­son­nel. Avatar of every­woman thirst Issa Rae gives April a smile that mer­its com­par­i­son to Guc­ci Mane’s pearly grin, and an exper­tise with tossed-off asides that recalls Brides­maids-era Kris­ten Wiig.

She shares a crack­ling chem­istry with Hall, and after some Black Girl Mag­ic™ traps the high-pow­ered exec­u­tive in her girl­hood body, Rae gets along with Mar­tin like gang­busters as well. The pint-sized pro­duc­er is des­tined for big things on- and off-screen, deliv­er­ing her punch lines as only a per­former with sit­com train­ing can.

So if we must tread the same ground for­mer­ly cov­ered by Big (and 18 Again!, and 17 Again, and 13 Going on 30, and…), at least we’ve got a few divert­ing per­son­al­i­ties lead­ing the way. And that path takes them through a few moments that earn their laugh – an impromp­tu Mag­ic Mike XXL par­o­dy, an imi­ta­tion Alexa named ​“Home­girl” with auto­mat­ed replies that keep it 100, some squirmy sex­u­al ten­sion between Mar­tin and her hunky teacher.

Still, the laps­es in basic func­tion­al­i­ties like plot­ting and char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion put a damper on what works. That goes for the tal­ent squan­dered as well as the over­all air of empow­er­ment, any vic­to­ry of rep­re­sen­ta­tion under­mined by writ­ing and direc­tion unwor­thy of the trail­blaz­ers attached to it. Of course, women of colour ascend­ing to the high­est sta­tions of indus­try deci­sion-mak­ing is a net good in the biggest-pic­ture sense. If only the progress could be in ser­vice of a bet­ter film.