Little Boxes

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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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

16 July 2017: I see all and support All Interracial movies and t.v shows between men and women. What I wish is that movies would sometimes show Interracial men/women couples as other than just Black & White {African American-Caucasian American}. We need to show mixed race couples of how American really is Not just Black & White couples, but also Hispanic and Caucasian or Asian and African American or African American and East Indian or Middle Eastern as in Israeli or Egyptian Arabs married to a Black or White American. Those mixed couples do exist in real life too.

This on is Not the best Interracial flick, but not that bad. I liked the talented kids the most, young child actress, Oona Laurence is great in her role as Ambrosia and the other young girl who played her friend and young Armani Jackson as "clark" were good. The adults in the cast were okay. Okay for red box or Lifetime channel t.v movie.

Two things that that I did NOT like in this film. One during the scene where the little girl, Ambrosia finds out that Clark's mom is White and she runs off angrily to her room. Anyone over the age of 10 can clearly see when a person is obviously Biracial if his or her skin town is very light, but with other features such as hair texture. Anyone can clearly see that Clark is Not all Black.

I am fed up and tired of seeing movies where a Biracial {black-white} kid or adult is only referred to only as Black. It takes two adults (man & woman} to make a baby and if one of the adults is of another race then the child is of both races and that is in the DNA. Biracial people are Not just one race, they are both races.

Oona's role as Ambrosia is very smart, outgoing and precocious for her age. So she should Not have been shocked to find his mom is Caucasian/White. Also, he did not act like a kid from an all black poor street ghetto with bad English full of street slangs. Clark's diction is proper. It just did not make any sense for Ambrosia to freak out and get angry because he is Biracial.

A boy his age is going to be curious about the opposite sex and since his dad nor mom had the "Talk" with him yet, he is finding out on his own. So his mom should Not have been so shocked when she sees a bikini magazine or poster on his wall. It is just time to give the boy the "Talk".

Next thing, there is No way a kid his age should be having a girlfriend at his age. He could have a crush on a girl, maybe. Perhaps, he was just bragging to his cousin or not when he ran off angrily after the white mom scene. Over all, I give this film one thumb up and a 7. A much better young Interracial Love story is "Everything-Everything" starring Amandla Stenberg.

When I first decided to watch this movie I had to question myself if I wanted to take a chance on yet another film that is build around racial issues. I'm quite frankly a bit tired of the "black family moves to a white racist town" or the "white teacher saves a class in the projects" type of films. Those films is so overdone, and also tend to portray people as if it's still the mid 80's or something.

In this film they kinda fall in the trap with writing the town people as socially awkward, and borderline racist. Which i guess in some cases might fit, but I don't personally find it believable that everyone is like that. On top of that I felt unsatisfied when the movie ended because I just sat there and wondered what I was supposed to get from it. It barely made me laugh, it didn't move me or make me cry, it didn't make me sad or happy, and worst of all it didn't really give me the good-feel either. So i don't know what they actually tried to do with this film, because it can best be described as "meh".

To wrap it up I would like to go back to my topic. It could be so much more. With that I mean it is definitively a good story hiding in this film, and they probably should have made it more about the kid, and write it so that the audience at least get that good-feel or the nostalgic love memories. But as it is right now, I can't really give my recommendations.

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.