‘Little Death’ Review: Separate Storylines Highlight Character Explorations in Jack Begert’s Lingering Debut | Sundance 2024

“No one wants to watch another white guy with problems, not in this climate.” That’s the feedback Martin (David Schwimmer) gets on the film script, yet Little Death still manages to be all about him – at least for part of the time. This Sundance NEXT selection doesn’t initially feel all that experimental as it covers the film industry, relationships, and society’s dependence on pills, but halfway through, it abandons all its characters and begins an entirely new story. Both halves of this intriguing amalgam are worthwhile and engaging, but figuring out how they relate to each other remains a confounding question even after the credits roll.

Martin is not a happy man, and he can barely stand his fiancée Jess (Jena Malone), wondering to himself in bed if a large mole on her neck might be cancer and she’ll just die. That seems for him like an ideal alternative to their impending Costa Rica vacation, but his mind is elsewhere when he secures his funding, under the condition that he change the gender of his main character. Feeling betrayed by this need to abandon a project that’s based on his own life, Martin does become a woman for parts of the story, now played by Gaby Hoffmann but still appearing to everyone else as the same self-obsessed Martin. 

Martin’s trajectory is a clear skewering of Hollywood, and there’s so little to like about him. In a moment of anger, Jess confesses that she’s happy that he’s miserable but can’t stand that he drags her down with him. He laments that every Uber driver in Los Angeles is likely an aspiring actor, and professes his superiority, purporting that a writer’s work is far more noble than the pursuit of fame, where you’re recognized by your name and not your face. That Martin must ultimately lose himself within his own movie feels like a fitting punishment, though his narrow interpretation of the note he receives means that the female version of his character is essentially just a feminized version of him, full of just as much rage and unwillingness to listen to anyone. 

Despite his unlikeability, Martin does make for a very watchable character. But as another act of deserved revenge for his haughtiness, his story is abruptly abandoned in favor of two teenagers in a bad situation looking for some sense of stability. Never Rarely Sometimes Always breakout Talia Ryder and Euphoria star Dominic Fike are Karla and AJ, whose involvement in a botched burglary dredges up deep-rooted tensions in their relationship. A search for their stolen belongings turns into a more incisive probing of their problems, bringing buried resentments to the surface.

Jack Begert, best known for his music video direction, makes his feature debut with this unexpected combination of two mostly separate stories. That they are loosely linked together only matters so that the narrative isn’t expressly unconnected, but it’s still a jarring shift that almost feels like a dream. Martin has already been replaced by someone who’s not supposed to quite be him, and now he’s been writing out altogether. A search for connective tissue between the two stories will likely come up empty, since the second act doesn’t feel like the kind of content Martin would ever even bother to contemplate, let alone write. If not for a few chance circumstances, the characters in this film’s two halves essentially exist in separate universes.

However disjointed its tales might be, Little Death boasts strong performances across the board. Of the Friends cast, Schwimmer’s attempts to distance himself from that eternally popular series and his role as Ross Geller have been least successful over the years. His Martin shares some traits but lacks Ross’ goofiness, and Schwimmer does make him feel sufficiently distinct from his most well-known part. Hoffman doesn’t have much to do but gives exactly what she’s asked, adding so little since her version of Martin can’t really be considered a standalone character. Malone is full of passion and righteous indignation towards the condescending partner who baselessly feels like he’s better than her. In act two, Ryder and Fike both impress and play off each other, disguising insecurity as immaturity in their poignant and emotional portrayals of teenagers in way over their heads.

In both of its halves, Little Death contains amusing particularities that linger even if they’re not ultimately relevant to either segment’s narrative. Martin explains that Jess used to be overweight and was gifted a bowling ball for every weight loss benchmark she hit, meaning that she now has a large collection of balls and bowls on a regular basis. Grady (Karl Glusman), a friend of a friend who might be able to help Karla and AJ retrieve their stolen items, is all kinds of weird, seemingly paranoid and desperate for companionship at the same time. Those peculiar moments made Little Death a curious specimen, fully intriguing for the whole of its runtime but ultimately a bit off-kilter in its complete construction.

Grade: B

Little Death is playing in the NEXT section at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.