Little Woods - Review

Little Woods (On demand)

Little Woods, North Dakota, a fracking boom town well beyond its prime. Ollie (Tessa Thompson) is trying to survive the last few days of her probation after getting caught illegally running prescription pills over the Canadian border. But when her mother dies, she is thrust back into the life of her estranged sister Deb (Lily James), who is facing her own crisis with an unplanned pregnancy and a deadbeat ex. The two find they have one week to settle the mortgage on their mother's house or face foreclosure. As bills and pressure mount, Ollie faces a choice: whether to return to a way of life she thought she'd left behind for just one more score or to leave it all behind.

REVIEW: Lots of the story line of “Little Woods” plays out very similar to the superior 2016 Oscar Nominated film “Hell or High Water. Two siblings confronted with losing their dead parent’s home and land. One sibling is on parole while the other is not the best at parenting. The bank sends a foreclosure notice that will collect their home at the end of the week unless they can come up with $3,000. Pushed to extremes the sisters resorts to crime (selling drugs) to pay the bank loan before the COB Friday deadline. 

Besides having a solid plot the most significant compelling aspect to this film - the reason to see it is just how effective actress Tessa Thompson is in carrying and elevating this film’s material through her words, the anxiety painted on her face and her actions. Especially so  when she is confronted by men who see her as weak because she is a woman. She is no ones' push over, she is strong and she is the "one who get things done". Thompson’s portrayal of “Ollie” is a refreshing look at a woman who is self-reliantly tough and emotionally determined and yet equally fragile and feminine around the edges even when she is pushed to extremes, she always finds a way to persevere. This is Tessa's best work yet.

With the ambiance of a cold, dark, bleak and dank North Dakota, “Little Woods” is a quietly imaginative film operating through an intimate microscopic look at how some working class people get pain pill dependencies, not as addicts, but just as a means to keeping their jobs to pay the bills, to keeping a roof over their heads and to being able to feed their families. And on the flip side it also shows why some other working class people take up the part-time profession of selling drugs only to paying the bills, to keeping a roof over their heads and to being able to feed their families.

"Little Woods" is a slow nuanced film, but one that seems to manage to have from scene to scene a genuinely huge empathetic heart about decent people just wanting to survive.

“Little Woods” is worth a see.

3.25 Stars.