The Little Hours

Jeff Baena’s The Little Hours is a raunchy comedy based on one of the stories in the 14th-century Italian collection The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. It tells of the misadventures of a group of malcontented nuns (Aubrey Plaza, Alison Brie, Kate Micucci) who live in a medieval convent run by a befuddled priest (John C. Reilly) and a well-meaning mother superior (Molly Shannon).

Shooting in a loose, improvisatory, low-budget style and relying on the comic personas of his cast (which also includes Nick Offerman, Jemima Kirke, and Fred Armisen) you might think this would be one of those tedious, half-baked comedies that fall apart after about forty minutes.  Happily, this is not the case. Baena clearly knows his source material well, and he possesses a real flair for exploring what makes the Middle Ages fascinating and relevant, not just arcane. Rather than attempting to recreate the period with authentic language, dialects and behavior, this film places modern characters with irreverent contemporary sensibilities into a period setting. This anachronistic choice is not done simply for the purpose of hipster irony—if so, the one-joke movie would barely sustain the length of a sketch-comedy segment. Rather it gives the viewer a hilarious and relatable sense of the people you might actually meet in a medieval convent.

A long tradition exists of satire that injects contemporary perspectives, beliefs, and conduct into ancient history and classical literature as a way of getting at the truth of what folks of earlier eras were like—their backgrounds, life struggles, and daily existence. However American comedies rarely excel at this. Perhaps the lack of a classical education puts American satirists at a disadvantage compared to their British and European contemporaries and forbearers. Most Americans possess neither the desire to rebel against stuffy old texts nor the understanding that these classical writings might not be so dull after all. Baena doesn’t just use his setting and source material as a surface to play on; he pulls audiences inside and allows us to explore possibilities along with his actors.

While The Little Hours doesn’t appropriate history or literature with the intelligence or number of big laughs found in the Monty Python films, it deserves a place at the same table—perhaps seated next to the movies of Mel Brooks.

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