Little Boxes

"You are so interesting." (White townie to new black resident)

Little Boxes is a little film that wants to be more than it is. While it would like to be a quirky tale of an interracial family moving from NYC to white Washington State, it's a slow moving story of a few dysfunctions on the part of the rural town faced with the black and white presence and awkwardly responding to it.

The white mother, Gina, played underwhelming by Melanie Lynskey, accepts a tenure-track job at Rome College with perks her black writer husband, Mack (Nelsan Ellis), appreciates if only because his second book is taking a great deal of time. Eleven-year- old son, Clark (Armani Jackson), is experiencing a new life with a couple of 11-year-old girls, nothing grand, just the kind of pre-teen exploration that seems awfully tame from my jaded point of view.

The meaty issues that hover over the biracial motif are meekly treated by a few pedestrian lines such as a young girl exclaiming the town needs a black: "We like totally needed a black kid. This town is SO white!" Or about husband a neighbor says, "If you close your eyes you can't even tell he's black." The mold hiding in the family's house is hardly a hidden metaphor. Embarrassing stuff

The only excitement in this turgid melodrama is when Clark gets in trouble for boyish misdeeds, odd actually for such a nice kid. I'm trying not to mention the four female professors at bad karaoke while over drinking on their regular lunch break. Even worse Gina is criticized for getting "sloppy" in a small town--a definite no no and a signal of intolerance almost unheard of in Brooklyn.

Clearly Little Boxes (hmm, people trapped? town?) is not in the suburban satirical league of Ice Storm and American Beauty. Even in the final act, a resolution occurs so quickly as to be unbelievable. But I'm not going to spoil one of the only spirited parts of the film.

Little Boxes attempts to explore and unearth these certain racial frictions and casual racism that something like the film Get Out has done amazingly. The efforts are appreciated, and there are certainly good scenes (Mack's interactions with that 'writer') but the film never quite knows what to do with the things it brings up. It just lets them hang there uncomfortably, something that an ignorant audience can just brush past quickly.

Little Boxes made of ticky tacky Little boxes moving to a small town, where they don't look the same. There's a black one and a white one and the one they made that's in-between and these boxes from Brooklyn are having a hard time adjusting to a vastly different way of life.

So the idea of Little Boxes is that Clark Burns, an eleven year old kid from liberated New York, moves to Rome...Washington, were he's one of two black people living there. The other being his father Mack who is also feeling the awkwardness of being in a place where it seems for a lot of them he's the only black person they ever met, which brings us to Gina, the White woman pretty much responsible for bringing them there do to her job and is feeling the pressure of not fully understanding the situation.

The social commentary is very subtle, but ringing loud and clear. I actually loved the contrast of Mack hanging with his boys back in Brooklyn (one black one white), and being comfortable to be politically incorrect, then coming to Rome where the slightest miss use of words has the white folks questioning themselves. Although as the movie brings up, Mack also can't help but to be sensitive to what the town folks think of him.

But if I'm selling this to you as a comedy I want to point out that the funniest parts of the movie have nothing to do with any political issue, and everything to do with just very basic family matters type stuff. Moving to a new territory is difficult and the best hi jinks come from the new family in town just trying to deal.

Nice little movie parading some big topics in a light hearted way.

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Wonderful film...full of realistic, thought-provoking scenes. Very relatable to our everyday experiences. The film explores themes of moving to a new home, racial challenges, coming of age and confronting one's weaknesses. It offers a nice balance between drama, humor and reality. Recommend it for any age, including young adults, who can relate to the young actors and their characters. The music choices are great; the music enhances the story and the visual. The acting--young and old--was spot on! The characters were so believable, that i fell into the story and wholeheartedly went along for the ride! I highly recommend this film!

I do understand that some people think it is a boring film, but on the contrary it is a nice realistic film about a normally mixed family moving from a city to a village. And the difference in lifestyle in both cities. It is an adult movie that many people can agree with, also funny. Therefore for me a more than sufficient, a 6.5