Little Pink House (2018)

The Worst Film Ever

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

A small-town nurse named Susette Kelo emerges as the reluctant leader of her working-class neighbors in their struggle to save their homes from political and corporate interests bent on seizing the land and handing it over to Pfizer Corporation. Catherine Keener is usually pretty good in most things she does unfortunately the same can not be said about her newest film called 'Little Pink House' a film that will literally put you to sleep by how slow and boring it turned out to be but also how older than usual Keener was for some reason too. (0/10)

I was fortunate enough to meet Susette Kelo before seeing the movie. It is amazing how closely Catherine Keener gets her right; her look, voice, shyness and inner strength. The movie also does an excellent job of balancing the political story with the personal one. It's a very fine line because with too much of one you'd have a documentary and too much of the other you wouldn't know what was going on. Well worth the price of admission.

This film gets to you. As a retired constitutional lawyer, I'm usually hard on Hollywood's typical cutting-corners presentations of legal procedures and issues. And as a life-long performer of various kinds, I usually view acting with a critical eye. This film did a great job of both: the actors playing Susan Kelo and her boyfriend were so believable & created so much empathy for the characters, that it was actually a wrench to see photos of the story's real-life principals at the end, to be reminded by those that it *was* acting. The writer and director did an excellent job of making the substance of complex & very serious legal issues accessible, and the procedural steps clear and comprehensible. Even the scene of a Supreme Court argument, usually something very, very difficult to distill simply, was tight, succinct and clear. Throughout, the human elements of the story predominated: what eminent domain did to the people of one neighborhood -- and the human elements were very engrossing. The villains may seem to outside eyes just a slight touch caricatured, but I am sure that, through the eyes of Susan Kelo and her neighbors, the bureaucrats, politicians & functionaries who knowingly stole their homes, deserved every bit of those portrayals. An excellent job overall!

Saw this movie at the Santa Barbara Film Festival....and can't wait for it to come to LA. Wonderful performance by the amazing Catherine Keener. And the true story will hit you in the gut. Can the government take your property and just hand it over to a Fortune 500 company because they want more taxes? The Supreme Court says they can. Everyone needs to see this.