Marsai Martin, one of the stars of “black-ish,” won a BET Award last week for Best Young Star.
That suggests she’s considered a mover in the business. “Little” could be the reason why.
Although it’s a middling film, it’s also Martin’s debut as a producer. At 14, she guided the project and stars as the younger version of a character played by Regina Hall.
Not far removed from “Freaky Friday,” it lets opposites understand what it’s like to walk in someone else’s shoes.
Hall plays the mean head of a company who thinks nothing of barking orders at everyone. She’s a tyrant who demands everything. When she pushes too hard with a young girl who’s in her parking lot, she’s somehow transformed into her younger self (enter: Martin). With the help of her assistant (Issa Rae), she manages to hide the truth from her colleagues.
School, however, proves to be a different situation. Neighbors report a teenager in their midst and she’s forced to enroll at the middle school that caused her grief oh-so-many years earlier. There, she’s relegated to the nerds table and reminded just how awful it feels to be an outcast. She bonds with the others, gets them to rally and finds a way to care about someone other than herself.
Mr. Marshall (Justin Hartley) welcomes little Jordan Sanders (Marsai Martin) and April Williams (Issa Rae) in “Little.”
While Hall is very good at playing a character who’s forceful (and frightening), it’s Martin who takes the attitude and runs with it. She mimics Hall nicely and has fun tromping around in designer shoes, with an expensive purse on her arm.
Director Tina Gordon doesn’t even bother explaining how any of this happened, she just goes with it and tries to capitalize on the moments when Martin is monstrous.
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