Every few months in the world of movies, there’s a small delight that nearly slips past notice. The Little Hours, an unapologetically anachronistic confection directed by Jeff Baena (Life After Beth) and based loosely–very loosely–on Boccaccio’s Decameron, is one of these. Aubrey Plaza stars as a restless medieval nun who’s less a holy roller than an eye roller. Everything about life in the cloisters annoys her, including a googly-eyed tattle-tale Sister (Kate Micucci) and a prissy rich girl (Alison Brie) who’s been parked in the joint by her father. The arrival of a strapping groundskeeper (Dave Franco) riles everybody.
The Little Hours coasts along breezily on the oddball rhythms of its actors. The cast also includes John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon, who cap the whole crazy enterprise in a surprisingly tender coda. It doesn’t hurt that Baena and cinematographer Quyen Tran shot the picture in sun-washed Tuscany. Looking for a break from the Black Death, or even just the summer heat? The Little Hours is just the thing.
This appears in the July 10, 2017 issue of TIME.
- How to Help Victims of the Texas School Shooting
- TIME's 100 Most Influential People of 2022
- What the Buffalo Tragedy Has to Do With the Effort to Overturn Roe
- Column: The U.S. Failed Miserably on COVID-19. Canada Shows It Didn't Have to Be That Way
- N.Y. Will Soon Require Businesses to Post Salaries in Job Listings. Here's What Happened When Colorado Did It
- The 46 Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2022
- ‘We Are in a Moment of Reckoning.’ Amanda Nguyen on Taking the Fight for Sexual Violence Survivors to the U.N.
