The Little Hours 2017

[7.6/10] I have no idea how to classify or categorize The Little Hours. It’s a little bit of a blasphemer comedy in the spirit of Life of Brian. It’s a little bit of a 1980’s sex farce. It’s a little bit of profane, mumblecore comedy. It’s a little bit of an exaggerated high school drama. It’s a little bit of an empowerment story. Occasionally, it’s even a bit of a surprisingly earnest and humane 1300s period piece.

And yet, it somehow feels cohesive throughout. The Little Hours is by no means the tightest plotted story you’ve ever seen on the screen. Its visuals, while suited to the tone and atmosphere of the film, are nothing to write home about. And its comedy is loose and shaggy, more about feel or about the wackiness of a given situation and the chemistry of the performers than it is anything precisely written or delivered. But it nevertheless manages to feel like it’s own unique thing, an indie comedy about profane, lascivious young nuns and the object of their affections that is raggedy at times, but strangely endearing.

The film centers on three nuns at an isolated convent in the Middle Ages. There’s sister Alessandra (Alison Brie), who very much wants a life away and apart from the endless mundanity of nunhood, and who’s both penned in and made the object of scorn by the fact that her father is a noted patron of the church. There’s Sister Fernanda (Aubrey Plaza), who is basically just April Ludgate of Parks and Recreation fame if she were a nun in the 1300s and free from the bounds of network censorship: vulgar, rebellious, and dryly disdainful of pretty much everything. And there’s Sister Ginerva (Kate MiCucci), a jealous but comparatively innocent and naive young woman who also feels trapped by the strictures and social order of the convent.

The object of their affections is Massetto (Dave Franco), a servant of a local nobleman who runs away after being caught en flagrante with his master’s wife, who takes refuge in the convent after helping its priest out of a jam and becoming drinking buddies with him.

It is, suffice it to say, a weird film. There is petty high school politics played out among ladies in habits. There are heavily underlined themes of each of these young women being trapped by this system by different things and for different reasons and wanting to break free. And there’s the sort of loose-hewn, hang out comedy vibe that feels both out-of-place and yet also inherently amusing in the confines of a convent.

That style lets the chemistry and talents of the performers shine. The different temperaments of Alessandra, Fernanda, and Ginerva make for a unique and generally funny combo when they’re bounced off of one another. And John C. Reilly as Father Tommasso is absolutely in his element, finding the right blend of priestly gravitas and rule-bending buddyism that fits the tone of the film perfectly.

There’s a great deal of baked-in commentary about sexuality which is, again, a bit of an odd fit for a comedy about nuns, but works in context. All of the main character nuns in the film (including head nun Sister Maria, played by Molly Shannon) have carnal desires that the church frowns on.

At times, the movie’s exploration of this feels exploitative and even rape-y without much reflection or context. Characters are fondled at knife-point or while intoxicated and out of control and resistant. Some of it can be written off as commentary, as the extremes that these people go to in a repressive situation, though some of it feels like the film just gesturing to the audience and going, “Isn’t this crazy? They’re nuns! Pretty wild, huh?”

But with the kindest reading, the film seems to be suggesting that when you confine people like this, keep them from the things they can’t help but want and shame them for feeling what they feel, their desires are going to come out in weird, hurtful ways. There’s the sense that Alessandra, Fernanda, and Ginerva all want something beyond what the convent can offer them, but that what it can’t take away is the chance for sexual gratification, which they pursue as a strange sort of freedom and rebellion where they can find it. That’s a little weird, and a little heavy, and contributes to the darkness of this black comedy, but also marks The Little Hours as something unique.

The same goes for the streak of earnestness in what often seems meant to be played as a wacky sex romp. The film signposts the idea a little too strongly at times, but when Alessandra tears up a her dad’s news that this life might be her “calling” or she stares at an older nun and contemplates it as her undesired future, there’s weight and feeling to it. When Ginerva is jilted after an experience that meant more to her than to her paramour, there’s a depth and pathos to it, that puts her subsequent, wilder actions into relief. And even the brief reunion between two lovers forced apart, all smiles and efforts to treasure their brief together, has an affecting warmth to it.

That doesn't stop The Little Hours from verging to the bizarre or ludicrous at times. There’s hilarious banter between boneheaded guards, interrupted witches’ covens, people pretending to be without hearing or speech, and xenophobic, torture-philic speeches as only Nick Offerman could deliver them. Rest assured, despite the solemnity of the surroundings and the attire, this film still features the slanted sense of humor its stars are known for.

But it features those comic stylings in interesting ways, couched in a broader message. I’m still not sure how to make sense of The Littlest Hours, from its alternatively uncomfortable and wacky sex scenes, to its amusing and oft-profane mumbles back and forth between characters, to its use of the mores of the 1357 to comment on what’s changed and what hasn’t about sexuality and freedom in 2017. It is a funny movie, but in a mode and a guise that few movies try to be, which makes it distinctive and intriguing even when it’s falls short of divine perfection.