Director Nia DaCosta’s Little Woods is a 2018 American crime thriller film. It draws drama from the underground economy in which the prescription drug crisis thrives. It showcases the perpetual state of emergency lived by residents of formerly booming towns now faded into ghost towns.
1. Quick review
DaCosta drops us inside the lives of two estranged sisters. They try to band together to avoid eviction from their late mother’s house, in the North Dakota backwater of Little Woods. One sibling is portrayed to be a perennial screw-up, the other a resourceful survivor.
Both temperaments are shaped by the drastically limited choices available to them. The young women are in deep trouble. As the film opens, the viewers understand they’re far from a tight family unit.
Little Woods is full of wonderfully nuanced character beats. James and Thompson battle for who gives the better performance, both of them embodying a world-weariness that has infected so much of this country in places where the economics of daily life feel increasingly unmanageable. But they don’t sink into the archetypes these characters could have easily become.
2. Is it worth watching?
If Little Woods had trusted its two leading ladies a little bit more, it could have been a truly great film. It is a very good one that is worth seeing mostly for its cast. Its two leads are increasingly rising to the top of their generation in terms of ability.
Tessa Thompson and Lily James have arguably never been better than they are here in Nia DaCosta’s film. They are surrounded by an incredible supporting cast, including memorable turns from James Badge Dale, Lance Reddick, and a menacing Luke Kirby.
The larger problem here is with DaCosta’s script. Characters too often say exactly what they’re feeling or need in ways that make them sound like mouthpieces for a writer instead of real people. It doesn’t happen often enough to detract too much from appreciating Little Woods as an acting showcase. However, it does so just enough to make one wish it was a more subtle film overall.
I. Plot
Ollie (played by Tessa Thompson) and Deb (played by Lily James) are sisters. Albeit via Ollie’s adoption by Deb’s now-deceased mother. They live in an oil boomtown in North Dakota. Ollie is the good sister, who stood by her mother while Deb was involved in her own personal calamities. Like having a son, she can’t afford to raise with a drunk and absent father, Ian (played by James Badge Dale).
Ollie turns to sell OxyContin on the black market, with Ian’s help. In sheer desperation, of course, just to pay for her mother’s medical bills. Eventually caught running drugs back from Canada, Ollie is now on the verge of finishing her probation as supervised by her probation officer, Carter (played by Lance Riddick). But will she manage to get off the charges she faces?
II. Music & Visuals
The music directors of this film are Brian Mcomber and Malcom Parson. Brian Mcomber is an American music producer, film score composer, and percussionist. Malcom Parson is an American cellist, music producer, and film score composer. He has worked on composition for shows like Ballet After Dark, Gool Ol Girl, and The World’s Greatest Storyteller.
The soundtrack of the film features songs by Emmylou Harris (Deeper Well), The Dead Weather (I Feel Love Every Million Miles), and Jason Betrand (I Want My Country Back). The soundtrack is available to stream on YouTube and Spotify.
The film wrings severe beauty from a desolate landscape of cavernous nocturnal parking lots and rickety plywood interiors. Thematically and visually, Little Woods is of a piece with Courtney Hunt’s Frozen River (2008).
It can also be compared to Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy (2008) and Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone (2010). It holds similarity with these intimate realist dramas with a touch of the Grimm fairy-tale.
3. Final thoughts
Ollie is an attractive woman of color who appears to live in a place that’s populated mostly by undereducated and oversexed white men. Though Ollie is harassed by men in sexualized altercations, the effect of her seeming dislocation on her identity is pushed aside.
However, the pressures applied by economic instability and the American healthcare system prove to be far worse than sexual predators and drug dealers.
DaCosta’s film is the first in this sub-genre to be made by a black woman with a black woman in the lead. The film touches on sensitive topical issues like abortion, reproductive rights, and sexual assault.
There is only one sympathetic black probation officer (played by Lance Reddick) who is firmly planted in Ollie’s corner. Otherwise, we see through the film that it’s men — parasitic, predatory, or both — who give the two young women the most grief.
Little Woods can be plodding, humorless, and hobbled by trying to cram too much in. But its ambitions, with Thompson putting a human face on urgent contemporary issues, definitely deserve praise.
4. Grade
Story: B
Cinematography/Animation: A
Acting: A+
Music: B
Direction: B+
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