The Map Of Tiny Perfect Things
Directed by Ian Samuels
Running time: 1hr39 | REVIEWED BY CATHERINE BRAY
Kathryn Newton and Kyle Allen star in The Map Of Tiny Perfect Things
Lev Grossman, adapting his own short story for the big screen with The Map Of Tiny Perfect Things, knows a thing or two about building storyworlds. He’s the brain behind the popular Magicians universe, which collides purposely jejune malaise and sexual intrigue with the youthful fantasy trappings of The Chronicles of Narnia. But Grossman (who has a small cameo here as a guy who nearly gets shat on by a bird) is on more wholesome ground with The Map Of Tiny Perfect Things, in which two suburban teens find themselves repeating the same 24 hours, a la Groundhog Day.
This set-up affords DoP Andrew Wehde (Eighth Grade) the chance to have fun choreographing some playful sequences, especially a lovely low-key pair of casually elegant unbroken master shots around one hour in, which underscore the characters’ familiarity with the beats of their time-loop better than any number of waking-up-again jolts. It’s like a musical number without the music; an approach that extends to the supporting cast (keep an eye on Jermaine Harris’ career - his role here is brief, but he’s super charismatic), who must necessarily exist outside of the action, since they are unable to influence it, and so function as a chorus. This doesn’t prevent actors like Josh Hamilton (also an Eighth Grade alum) from adding pathos and humour. As a flailing father, Hamilton gets to play lines like “Do not do that ‘Ok Boomer’ thing with me” in a sympathetic mode of bruised authority.
Conceptually, this film is of course déjà vu all over again for viewers who’ve enjoyed other recent waltzes through similar territory, including Palm Springs (also worth seeing, for a characteristically charming outing from Andy Samberg as a likeable leading goofball and Meredith Hagner essentially reprising her stellar work as Portia from Search Party). Still, there’s a likeable lightness of touch to The Map Of Tiny Perfect Things, an amiable sense of modest ambitions fulfilled. That might sound like damning with faint praise, but it’s honestly a sweet relief to watch a mainstream film that is primarily concerned with serving up a little romance, a little humour, and isn’t a hotly contested building block in an interconnected megabucks IP Jenga puzzle. Kick back and unwind to a standalone yarn that makes a positive virtue of predictability.
THE MAP OF TINY PERFECT THINGS (2021) Written by Lev Grossman | Shot by Andrew Wehde | Edited by Andrea Bottigliero
