Les bonnes soeurs

This movie is just... Weird. I don't know how to explain it any more without giving stuff away. It's trippy. If you like the cast, I'd recommend you watch it, because you'll just enjoy their performances.

"The Little Hours" (2017 release; 90 min.) brings the story of a group of nuns in a small convent. As the movie opens, we are reminded it is "Garfagnana 1347", and we watch as the nuns go about their daily tasks and deal with their frustrations. Meanwhile, the handyman at a nearby castle is found out to be cheating with his master's wife, and as luck would have it, he ends up being hired by the priest running the convent. It's not long before some of the nuns have "impure thoughts"... To tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: the movie is very loosely based on/inspired by the book "The Decameron" by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (and source for the infamous 1971 movie of the same name by Pier Paolo Pasolini). Writer-director Jeff Baena takes a couple of the dozens of tales found in that book, and builds a script around it that is intended to showcase several of the actresses playing the nuns, including Alison Brie and Audrey Plaza (the latter also being a co-producer). The handyman is portrayed by Dave Franco (brother of James Franco, and looking remarkably similar). It took my quite a while to get into the flow of the movie, as at first we're not sure what to make of all this (the F-bomb laced outbursts, for one). Is this even comedy? If so, it's certainly one with a heavy twist of semi-absurd Monty Python-inspired comedy. The movie really hits its stride in the second half, where there are some memorable scenes (the "confession" taken by the priest of the handyman truly is a classic). The priest is played hilariously by John C. Reilly, who seems to revel in this part. Given that I had no idea in the initial 20 min. whether I would even stay through the end of the movie, that is quite remarkable!

"The Little Hours" premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival to positive buzz, and so when it finally opened this weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati, it was a given that I would check it our. The Sunday evening screening where I saw this at was attended nicely, somewhat to my surprise. Maybe people will find this a quirky little comedy. For me it was a bit too much all over the map, even if the second half is markedly better than the first half. In any event, I encourage you to check it out, be it in the theater, on VOD or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.

With such a fantastic cast and an interesting premise, I really expected this to be better that it was. Hypersexual nuns at a convent is a fun gag, but it runs out of steam fairly early on. Given all of the comedic talent involved, I should have laughed a lot more than I did. There are some amusing moments, but they pop up far less often than necessary.

My extensive experience with nuns in grammar school taught me that their sexual repression as it affected us was a life-long gift leaving us to search for the goodness of sex and the secrets of females. Jeff Baena's The Little hours confirms what we always suspected: The younger nuns and postulants actually had firm breasts and world-class hormones.

Handyman Masseto (Dave Franco) hides in a convent in 1347 medieval Italy as a deaf mute (no doubt the way some women consider men anyway). Malaspina Castle would remind you of the iconic castle in Monty Python and The Holy Grail, and their English vernacular evokes the abandon of Mel Brooks' several satires. While the young nuns explore their interest in the forbidden, especially sex of several kinds, the jokes are weak by comparison with Python, Brooks, and even Boccaccio's Decameron, on which this film is loosely based.

Not just the randy nuns and handyman violate the Church's dictates against freewheeling sex, the venerable overseer, Father Tomasso (John C. Reilly), is carrying on with an older nun while listening to the salacious details of the younger nuns' sins in confession. Reilly is always competent displaying a simple man's wonder at the underbelly of the world.

In grammar school a nun shouted me out for holding a girl's hand, calling me a "dirty thing." I had more laughs over that kerfuffle than during The Little Hours, where laughs are in limited supply while the parody of sanctimonious medieval religiosity is mildly rich. But not rich enough to eclipse the wit of Python and Brooks.

"I did 12 years with nuns, you know. So I came out of it going, like, 'I think Jesus is all right.' The rest of it I think stinks to the high heavens." Denis Leary

I think out of the gate this movie reminded me of a cruder version of something like Robin Hood: Men In Tights. Nuns swear like sailors and the director doesn't seem interested in the dialogue sounding like the period its set in. But everyone involved seems to be having a blast and it starts off quite fun. I'd say it loses some steam towards the end when it switches to a more serious tone. I wish they had just kept the stakes low and not tried so hard to have a heartfelt ending. A goofy movie like this didn't earn such a thing nor did it need it.

I still enjoyed a good chunk of it. Some standout performances from Aubrey Plaza, Alison Brie and Kate Micucci. Dave Franco is sadly underused here and has been funnier in other movies (Neighbours). There's some others that are fine but some of the roles are quite small and the characters are literally only in the first and last few minutes of the film. Overall it's worth watching if you like the cast. Otherwise there's nothing remarkable to recommend to someone who is unfamiliar with the bulk of the actors.