Review of Little Boy (2015) by Dave M — 24 Apr 2015

Depicting faith as a major part of a film's plot is a tricky thing, as the many-faceted movie "Little Boy" (PG-13, 1:40) does. Children will almost always believe what authority figures tell them, whether right or wrong. After all, the vast majority of people all over the world are raised, live and die following the religion of those closest to them. It isn't hard to get a young person to believe, or to have, as the Bible calls it, "the faith of a child." This movie shows adults giving one child mixed signals about the importance and effectiveness of believing, but he goes with what a priest tells him. The priest seems to have trouble explaining the boy's confusion between a church sermon claiming that "nothing is impossible" for someone with faith "as small as a mustard seed" and the priest's statement that prayer changes things "only if God wills it," yet, the boy believes his faith can do anything. That's the common thread running through this movie, but this is a wonderful story that's about a lot more than one theme.

The title character is a small 8-year-old boy named Pepper (Jakob Salvati), but others call him "midget", "runt", etc. because of his small stature. Eventually, the people of the (fictional) coastal town of O'Hare, California settle on the nickname "Little Boy", but Pepper has bigger problems than people picking on him and bullying him. His beloved father, James (Michael Rapaport), with whom Pepper has many imaginary adventures, has to go on a real-life adventure overseas to help fight World War II. Pepper's very upset that he can't join his "one and only partner" on this adventure, but the little boy has his loving mother, Emma (Emily Watson) and his caring, but hot-headed older brother, London (David Henrie), to look after him. Meanwhile, James finds himself fighting the Japanese in the Philippines.

Pepper grows obsessed with doing what he can to get his father back. After being called on stage at a magic show during which he "makes" a bottle move across a table, and then hearing a church sermon about faith accomplishing the impossible, he becomes convinced that he can basically will his father home. The local priest (Tom Wilkinson) tells Pepper that he can increase his faith by completing a list of good deeds which includes biblical admonitions to "feed the hungry", "shelter the homeless", "visit the sick", etc. And the priest adds "Befriend Hashimoto" to the list. Like Pepper, who is ostracized because of his height, Mr. Hashimoto (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) is also "burdened" with a physical characteristic that he cannot change. Hashimoto is treated very harshly by almost all the town's people because of his Japanese heritage.

Pepper follows the priest's instructions and Hashimoto helps Pepper complete his list, but asks the priest what will happen if "your imaginary friend in the sky" doesn't come through and Pepper's dad dies. As the main characters wrestle with whether to encourage Pepper's faith, discourage it or temper it, we occasionally get glimpses of what James is dealing with during the war and we hope almost as strongly as Pepper does that James gets home safely. The resolution to that situation is... very dramatic. (Sorry, but we're talking about military missions here. If I told you more, I'd have to kill you. Or you'd kill me for revealing a major plot point in this movie.).

"Little Boy" is anything but a little story. Salvati, for example, is one huge talent, especially for his age. The script's ruminations on faith show both sides of the issue fairly (giving believers, non-believers and those in between all something to relate to), but also seem to be delivering mixed messages. This film's executive producers include Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, who also produced "The Bible" (the mini-series, not the book). If their objective was to show faith as real, then why show so much of what Pepper accomplishes as having naturalistic explanations?

Then, of course, there's the backdrop for this story which is World War II - one of the biggest stories in the history of mankind. (Besides being Pepper's nickname, the film's title refers to the codename of the atomic bomb that the U.S. dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, an event which led to the end of World War II in the Pacific Theater.) The movie's messages about faith may seem simplistic to some, but the film's depiction of war is realistic in its danger and complexity. And whether you find the portrayal of faith issues to be oversimplified and inconsistent, or right on the mark, the movie deserves credit for making such an important conversation a major part of a feature film - and making us care so much about what it all means to one very special little boy. "A-".