A charming film directed mainly at adolescent girls called A Little Game provides some good lessons for life and an insight into the challenges that most children face in new surroundings. The movie plays out like an after school TV movie with all the safeguards expected. The family flick features an excellent cast, able direction and New York City for its background. Now on DVD the film works well on home television.
The Kuftinec’s Tom (Ralph Macchio) and Sarah (Janeane Garofalo) have a bright 10 year old daughter named Max who’s going to public school in New York City. They feel she is being held back not going to a private school where she can excel. They decide to enroll her in the all-girl Blackstone Academy a snooty school for the rich. There she finds that her fellow classmates are snobbish and competitive. Her teacher thinks Max has a lot of potential and needs to be challenged so she recommends she join the school’s chess club.
At the meeting of the chess club Max runs into a classmate Isabella (Fatima Patacek), a crack chess player, who blows Max off when she finds out that she knows nothing about chess. One day on her way home from school Max crosses into Washington Square Park where she meets Norman (F. Murray Abraham) a champion chess player. This chance meeting starts Max on a path where she will have to use her new lessons to become resilient, trust her instincts and other lessons in life.
The story may be a little predictable, but it’s charming and openly realistic for the age group. Director and writer Evan Oppenheimer uses his star cast very wisely not letting their fame take over the production. Using them to highlight the project rather than overstate their appearance he uses the younger actors to emphasize the premise of the film’s story. And you may even learn a little about chess.
That takes me to Makenna Ballard who makes her breakout performance and a very memorable one. She shines on the screen as the youngster who has to come face to face with her fears and stand up for herself. In the midst of the loss of a loving family member Max shows how much it hurts to lose someone, but comes to grips with it in an unusual way. Ballard’s the show stealer and you can see she’s having a lot of fun with it. Playing off some very prominent actors like Jeanine Garaffalo, Ralph Machio, F. Murray Abraham and Olympia Dukakis she looks like a professional herself. This past December she received the “Best Child Actor” award at the International Family Film Festival in Los Angeles.
While the film reaches out to a larger family audience, it does its most effective job with the adolescent female audience. All of the girls highlighted in the film give good performances and therefore should attract this level of movie goer. Director Evan Oppenheimer gives credence to his audience with a cross-section of young actors that represent most all personalities, race and ethnic groups.
BONUS FEATURES:
There are a few bonus features that may be helpful to budding filmmakers. “Behind the Scenes” is a short making of and features comments by the Director and most of the main cast. “Bloopers” The errors are quite funny and sometimes on purpose to create a little laughter on the set. Some are priceless to those who have actually worked a film set and know the number of takes to get a scene right.
The film has not been rated by the MPAA but does contains some rude scenes. Even though it’s a family oriented film be cautious when deciding to allow the very young see the film as it does have some scenes that may be inappropriate.
Specifications and additional video information:
Cast: Makenna Ballard, Janeane Garofalo, Ralph Macchio, Fina Strazza and Fatima Patacek
Director: Evan Oppenheimer
MPAA Rating: Unrated, contains rude behavior
Genre: Drama, Adventure, Family
Running Time: 1 hr 32 min
Video Release Date: January 20, 2015
Original Film Release Date:
Language: English
Format: DVD
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Video: Widescreen “Letterbox” Aspect Ratio 2:35:1
Subtitles: None
Number of Discs: 1 Disc
Distributed by: ARC Entertainment
Writer, critic, film editor John Delia, Sr. has been on all sides of the movie business from publications to film making. He has worked as a film critic with ACED Magazine for more than 20 years and other publications for a total of 40 years. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Florida. John is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association and Critics Association of Central Florida Send John a message at jdelia@acedmagazine.com
