Rating this film PG for "smoking" (it includes an adult cigarette smoker) is the biggest travesty here... There's nothing at all offensive in terms of strong language or sexual situations to warrant anything but a G-rating for this already-came- of-age film. A smaller travesty is that the film is obviously an older reworked script, updated with cell phones and gentrification and featuring athletic boys who avoid pools and implausibly keep their shirts on throughout (as is customary in America now to avoid accusations of child pornography - by contrast, the G-rated coming- of-age French film "My Father's Glory" from the 1990s has boys of a similar age in slo-mo full-frontal nudity). If lusty teen sexuality is what a viewer anticipates with a title like "Little Men," look elsewhere. That being said, the resulting movie is a sublimely watchable and brilliantly engaging story about gentrification and the intimate drama that urban renewal causes. Superb acting and a realistic premise should keep most viewers of serious cinema somewhat rapt and definitely impressed. Yet the finale may be something of a let-down to those who expect an intensive resolution instead of a climax that meanders to a halt.
Review of Little Men
