Little Death

It’s nice to see a first-time director unafraid to let his viewers have their own experiences and come to their own conclusions. Here’s one: the bravest thing about Little Death isn’t its risks––it’s the filmmakers’ choice to forgo nihilism for hope.

Begert’s aim is to shake Hollywood up. Yet his two movies-in-one proves that some old rules persist for a reason. As good as Schwimmer is as Martin, that story sinks under the weight of the one Fike and Ryder tell.

It tries to stretch the bounds of the narrative form, to upend convention and encourage us to rethink our relationship to storytelling. It aims to do all this with style — Begert’s direction is slick and capable — and absorbing performances from most of the cast. But Little Death can’t fulfill the ambitions of its intellectual exercise, resulting in a bifurcated film that doesn’t find its footing until the end.

Schwimmer’s great in a role that’s very much in his wheelhouse, but the second half never quite lives up to the first half, and the first half feels incomplete as a narrative, which leaves the whole film feeling like a disappointment.

Little Death is two vignettes — one more compelling than the other – that only loosely come together.

There’s a perplexing choice at the heart of Little Death, directed by Jack Begert, best known for his work in music videos. That choice is essentially to make two very different movies and smash them together.

It turns out this endeavor is a manic mix of two different movies in one and the second barely redeems it enough to make you stick around for the end credits.