The central premise of comedy is this: people are funny, usually unintentionally and often at the most inappropriate times. And people are never funnier, more unintentional and wildly inappropriate than when it comes to sex. The Little Death – the literal translation for the French phrase La Petite Mort which accurately translates to orgasm – takes the interweaving vignette style of romantic comedy that Love Actually so gracefully refined and reimagines it through the lens marked “yes, but what if we acknowledged all the kinky twists we know are lurking beneath the surface of these lovely people.”
For that is The Little Death’s comedic hunting ground: fetishes. Not the Hollywood kinks of choice like whips and chains and key parties, but the genuinely bizarre proclivities that your neighbours, and in fact your partner, could well be hiding in plain sight.
Writer and director Josh Lawson (TV’s House of Lies) delivers a genuinely hysterical comedy here, but most importantly a demonstration of all that is right with the genre. This is a crafted and nuanced rifling through people’s bedside drawers that remembers to cherish the owners at the same time. Excuse the pun, but there are no gags here, there is no mockery of the subjects or subject matter. The characters feel real, as do their proclivities, and the comedy comes from simply pondering how otherwise normal people would cope with the dawning realisation of their secret desires.
Lawson has assembled a glorious ensemble cast, every one of which clearly delights in getting domestically dirty. Most importantly though, audiences will find The Little Death to be a big-hearted comedy full of huge roars of laughter.
‘The Little Death’ Movie Times
