Filmmakers who grew up on Woody Allen movies are now making them. That’s all right; there’s room for witty, New York-centric comedy-dramas about how smart people mess up their lives.
Recent strong examples include Rebecca Miller’s “Maggie’s Plan” and Mike Birbiglia’s “Don’t Think Twice.” Joining this list is a “Little Men,” a thoughtful slice of New York life with a strong backbone of childhood friendship and adult ethics.
The 13-year-old kids are Jake (Theo Taplitz) and Tony (Michael Barbieri). Jake’s a quiet artist, Tony’s a brash would-be actor, but they become fast friends, with Brooklyn as their playground.
They meet after Jake’s parents (Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Ehle) inherit a small building. They live in the apartment upstairs; downstairs is the humble dress shop run by Tony’s immigrant mother, Leonore (Pauline Garcia, the standout Chilean actress from “Gloria”).
It turns out Leonore was getting a sweetheart deal on rent because of her close friendship with Jake’s grandfather. That rent is going to have to be tripled, which leads to the ethical problem: Leonore can’t pay that much, but Jake’s parents can’t afford not to get money out of the building.
This, of course, also affects the boys. But instead of making “Little Men” a straightforward “issue picture,” writer-director Ira Sachs and co-writer Mauricio Zacharias choose to weave an impressionistic portrait of people trying to get along.
Sachs, whose previous films “Love Is Strange” and “Keep the Lights On” were also bittersweet New York stories, has gotten really good at sketching people on film. You can hear the way kids pick up on certain words and incorporate them into their vocabularies, for instance, or see how confidently they wheel through Brooklyn on skateboard or roller blades.
For their part, the parents seem rather shallow, but Leonore can be petty, too. We can see each side of the argument.
Sachs is good at the details that speak volumes. Jake’s disappointment that some of his drawings were lost in his family’s move, for instance, or a long scene in which an exhilarated Tony trades improvised reactions with an acting teacher.
In its very quiet way, “Little Men” delves into issues of gentrification and the way people of different classes view each other. Best of all, it takes a rare look at how friendship can be fleeting but still significant. This may be a small film, but that’s a grand subject.
“Little Men” 3 1/2 stars
Two adolescent boys share a friendship, while their parents collide over a rent issue in a gentrifying Brooklyn. Ira Sachs’ quiet film is full of nice character beats, and has a wonderful subject in the way friendship can be fleeting but still significant. With Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Ehle.
Rating: PG, for subject matter
Showing: Sundance Cinemas
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