Danielle Solzman
Led by an impressive cast, All These Small Moments is a coming-of-age story that marks the directorial debut of Melissa Miller Costanzo.
Howie Sheffield (Brendan Meyer) doesn’t have the best family life at the moment. His parents, Tom (Brian d’Arcy James) and Carla (Molly Ringwald), are either headed towards a separation or divorce if they can’t get it together. The fighting is so bad that Tom has been relegated to sleeping on the couch. As for his brother Simon (Sam McCarthy), well, I don’t know to tell you. With everything going on in his personal life, the one thing that manages to push Howie in the forward direction is Odessa (Jemima Kirke). To him, she is “the woman on the bus” but there’s something more to her.
Howie sees Odessa on the bus every day yet he doesn’t even have the nerve to speak up. Yet when he follows her into a restaurant, Howie discovers some startling news about his father. Perhaps this may explain why his dad sleeps on the couch rather than in the bed. Shortly thereafter, Howie finds himself running to the bus and as fate has it, both he and Odessa are late.
While Howie is grows infatuated with Odessa, there’s someone right in front of his own eyes at the library, Lindsay (Harley Quinn Smith). There’s certainly something here. Does Howie see her in what might be the same way? It’s hard to tell because of his obsession with Odessa. I hesitate to call it an obsession but it certainly feels that way in many aspects.
This film isn’t without some interesting insight from Carla. What with everything going on her family, let alone having a husband cheating on her.
“They say if you’re going through a rough patch, you should busy yourself with a new project,” Carla Sheffield says. Her new project being the knitting of the sweater.
Perhaps what may be the most fascinating decision by writer-director Melissa Miller Costanzo is the decision to leave social media out of the film. While this decision to do so may be perplexing to say the least, it adds more of a human flavor to the film. In an era where our lives are so driven by technology, Costanzo forces us to focus on humans and their relationships to other humans. Ultimately, All These Small Moments is able to capture a part of Howie Sheffield’s adolescence in growing up.
DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER: Melissa Miller Costanzo
CAST: Molly Ringwald, Brian d’Arcy James, Brendan Meyer, Sam McCarthy, Harley Quinn Smith, and Jemima Kirke
