Little Men

Filmmaker Ira Sachs follows up critical darling Love is Strange with another New York-set tale following the new friendship of two boys who can't avoid their parents' problems.

When 13-year-old Jake’s (Theo Taplitz) grandfather dies, his family moves from Manhattan back into his father’s old Brooklyn home. There, Jake befriends the charismatic Tony (Michael Barbieri), whose single mother Leonor (Paulina García), a dressmaker from Chile, runs the shop downstairs. Soon, Jake’s parents Brian (Greg Kinnear) and Kathy (Jennifer Ehle) — one a struggling actor, the other a psychotherapist — ask Leonor to sign a new, steeper, lease on her store. For Leonor, the proposed new rent is untenable, and a feud ignites between the adults.

At first, Jake and Tony don’t seem to notice; the two boys, so different on the surface, begin to develop a formative kinship as they discover the pleasures of being young in Brooklyn. Jake aspires to be an artist, while Tony wants to be an actor, and they have dreams of going to the same prestigious arts high school together. But the children can’t avoid the problems of their parents forever, and soon enough, the adult conflict intrudes upon the borders of their friendship.