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The Little Hours is a 2017 American medieval black comedy film written and directed by Jeff Baena. The film is loosely based on the first and second stories of day three of ten of The Decameron, a collection of novellas by Giovanni Boccaccio, a 14th-century Italian writer.
- An enjoyable comedy that wears a little too thin by the time it’s over.
- Verdict
By Alex Welch
Posted: Jun 27, 2017 5:29 pm
The Little Hours proudly wears its influences on its sleeve, making them known from the moment the film begins. With long opening zooms into the Italian countryside and a top notch score by Dan Romer, The Little Hours looks and feels like a Monty Python sketch with the comedic tone and ambitions of a Mel Brooks parody. It’s by-and-large writer and director Jeff Baena’s most successful directorial outing to date - following the drab Life After Beth and unimpressive Joshy - even if it’s not nearly as funny, biting, or smart as the films it’s so clearly trying to emulate.
Set in 14th century Italy, The Little Hours follows the antics of a group of nuns living in a remote convent far away from any real semblance of civilization. Led by John C. Reilly’s laid-back, lovable Father Tommasso and Molly Shannon’s light hearted Mother Superior, the convent looks on the surface like any other might. What separates it from the rest, however, are the personalities of its three foul-mouthed nuns - Alessandra (Alison Brie), Genevra (Kate Micucci), and Fernanda (Aubrey Plaza) - who jump at the chance to yell at and berate any unsuspecting passerby.
But when their favorite target - the convent’s groundskeeper - eventually quits due to the nuns’ constant physical and emotional attacks on him, the trio set their sights quickly on his replacement, Massetto (Dave Franco), a young man on the run from his vengeful master (Nick Offerman), hired by Father Tommasso to masquerade as a deaf-mute in an attempt to keep the nuns from bothering him too much. Unfortunately, Massetto’s apparent inability to hear them and talk back to them only makes the nuns that much more interested in him, as each attempt to try and have sex with them for their own personal, secret reasons.
That’s the basic plot of The Little Hours, which begins to feel increasingly aimless as time goes on, thanks in no small part to the fact that the film doesn’t really tell you what many of its characters even want. In fact, other than Massetto, the only nun whose ambitions or motives are laid out from the beginning of the film is Brie’s Alessandra, who dreams of marrying a local man and running away from the convent, but who is trapped there by her father’s (Paul Reiser) inability to raise enough money for a wedding dowry. She sees being with Massetto as a chance to have her loneliness cured, and is apparently blissfully unaware that Genevra and Fernanda each have a growing resentment towards her.
The Little Hours succeeds on the talents of its cast members, with Nick Offerman, John C. Reilly, and Fred Armisen all turning in consistently funny performances, alongside the less impressive main cast members. It’s a one-note film that plays out its joke over and over again, occasionally throwing in half-baked ideas that really don’t add anything...
- Alex Welch
The Little Hours. In the Middle Ages, a young servant fleeing from his master takes refuge at a convent full of emotionally unstable nuns. Introduced as a deaf mute man, he must fight to hold his cover as the nuns try to resist temptation.
- (26K)
- Comedy, Romance
- Jeff Baena
- 2017-06-30
Jan 20, 2017 · “The Little Hours” is, then, a medieval convent comedy for the megaplex crowd, one that dispenses with the notion of nuns as prim-and-proper old maids who spend their days praying, and instead...
Jun 30, 2017 · In theaters Friday, the film juxtaposes its cast of alt-comedy legends with a tale straight from The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio’s series of erotic, comedic, and tragic novellas published in 1353.
- Jeff Baena
Medieval nuns Alessandra, Fernanda, and Ginevra lead a simple life in their convent. Their days are spent chafing at monastic routine, spying on one another, and berating the estate's day laborer.
- (126)
- Comedy
- R
Jun 27, 2017 · The Little Hours is reasonably entertaining, but it hints just enough at something deeper that it may well leave you wanting. Yet there are still simpler joys for people willing to follow along with a dirty comedy in the Chaucer mold (though The Decameron was as much an influence on The Canterbury Tales as anything).
