The Little Death (2014)

The Little Death (2014)

Not to be confused with the horror anthology Little Deaths (2011)… even though I hated it just as much!

Known in most of the French-speaking world as ‘If you love me…’ !
I’ve never really been convinced by the European titles of American films. Even though this is an Australian comedy (and I’ll do without comment on that this time!) written and directed by Josh Lawson.

The film begins with an exchange of fantasies in which there are phrases like: “But no, my darling, I love you! I only want to be raped by you!!!”
Well, personally, I say to each his own, eh? We don’t all have the same ones, apparently!

Yes, this feature-length film is about the fantasies, of varying degrees of intensity, of five couples living in a district of Sydney.

So we’ll also have dialogue like: “Your blow jobs aren’t very good!

• They’re not so bad!
• They suck…
• How about you? When was the last time you had a cunnilingus???
• It’s not the frequency that matters!

There’s also the “Listen, if it were that easy to have a child, everyone would have one!

• But that’s just it: everyone has them!
• Yes, but their babies suck! Ours will be the most beautiful…”

Having said that, if you like this kind of discussion and humour, you can throw yourself wholeheartedly into this film, which was fairly successful. On the other hand, if you really want something fine and subtle, I think you’d better steer clear. You know what I mean? Choices in life aren’t that hard to make!

A Spanish remake was even filmed in 2016 under the title Kiki, l’amour en fête!

So you have to be totally into it to enjoy this film. It may seem shocking, pointless or totally ridiculous to some, but to others it’s hilarious, intelligent and very well seen.

As far as I’m concerned, there are very few films based on sex that I find good, let alone exceptional. Whether it’s Shame (2011), Love & other drugs (2010), No Strings Attached (2011) or even Scary Movie (2000) I can definitely put on this list. Not a huge fan of Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex (1972) either. Sex Tape (2014) isn’t the worst, though, and I didn’t hate Friends with Benefits (2011), but I much prefer a film like Thanks for Sharing/Sex Therapy (2012), because that’s definitely more my thing. It’s serious and touching. No, sex comedies are not for me!

The characters pissed me off to no end. They’re a bit too twisted for me. None of them really touched me, none of them really made me laugh, none of them made me recognise myself in them… or very little. They’re either lost, unsympathetic or downright detestable. I don’t really have any empathy for those who take advantage of other people’s misfortune just to feel like they exist or are excited. Their weakness disgusts me and their cowardice and lack of communication exasperate me.

I was only waiting for one thing: justice for all! But even though I felt that it was going to happen, I also told myself that it was going to start all over again and that everything was going to go back to the way it was at the beginning, at the end.

This comedy about twisted sexual fantasies (so not necessarily uninteresting on paper!), with some tasty and hilarious scenes, is on the whole relatively uneven.

So, yes, the part with the deaf-mute is excellent, almost cult… but it’s one of only two stories worth telling that aren’t exploited as much as they should be (the other being the one with the new neighbour)!

It’s quite surprising for me to see Bojana Novakovic anywhere other than in her fabulous series Instinct (2018-2019) where she duets with Alan Cumming! Incidentally, I didn’t recognise her straight away in the very bad The Hallow (2015), because her hair was different and I was so not expecting to see her there.

On the other hand, I haven’t seen her Love Me series. I was happy to catch a glimpse of her in Birds of Prey (2020), even if the film is also a dud! I don’t know what Generation Um… with Keanu Reeves is worth. There’s a good chance it’ll be a disaster too, but I’ll have to check!

Yes, I’ve just checked and it’s just as bad!!!!

Finally :

Incoherent assembly of good ideas about sexual fantasies. Each gag is stretched out, as all the characters foolishly insist on remaining silent, ending in a pitiful fishtail. Added to this is a running gag that stops being very funny after a while, and is ineffective in its mission to provide some semblance of a link between these cut-up sketches. It quickly becomes a bore for a film in which, in the end, we don’t learn much apart from a few unexciting fantasy names.

So, frankly, it’s not a great film, but we’ll have smiled indulgently three or four times, that’s all. Prefer another feature-length film, because an hour and ten minutes to get to the only really nice (but still not lively) sketch is a LONG time!

Still, it’s better than a lot of French films!

In a single sentence: Absolutely horrible! What’s more, the ending is botched! Avoid it!