The Little Hours

Maybe Go
If you’re not easily offended, love quirky, raunchy humor, and love to have a good time, then this film may be for you.
The Little Hours is an indie comedy with an appealing cast and premise that unfortunately is likely to offend more people than it amuses. Allison Brie, Aubrey Plaza and Kate Micucci star as three young novitiates in the Middle Ages. The first two would vastly prefer life away from the isolated convent, and are champing at the bit in various ways. The third is a goody-two-shoes who eagerly tails and snitches on the others for the slightest no- nos. In fairness, she’s just as hard on herself, wearing out the confessional priest (John C, Reilly) who must endure her detailed recitations of trivial trespasses.

When a roguish servant (Dave Franco) is caught boinking the wife of a nearby lord (Nick Offerman), he flees in justifiable fear of his life, running into the drunken priest, who is in the midst of his own self-inflicted distress. After helping him recover, they devise a plan. Franco will return to the convent with him, pretending to be a deaf-mute laborer, allowing sanctuary for one, and a relief from the foul-mouthed invectives the young ladies had regularly screamed at the last poor sap who held the job.
The standard rules of narrative we all learned in our high school literature classes should apply to movie makers as well. Though you may not have room to hit every element of traditional plot structure, know that a story is roughly composed of exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, and denouement. However, this film is based on the first and second stories in ‘The Decameron’, written in 1348 a collection of novellas by Giovanni Boccaccio, so it pre-dates the rules.
Your choice if you like medieval bawdy romps.