Valerie Complex

Storytelling is an essential part of the human experience: How would we know the past and create futures without it? That conceit is the heart and power of Night of the Kings.

The performances and Fastvold’s poetic and intimate direction make it worth the watch. Perhaps next time, though, she’ll write the script.

It’s a mixed-at-best effort with a strong lead performance, but one that ultimately cannot honor the legendary song (or singer’s life) it takes most of its emotional and spiritual cues from.

It’s a miserable experience — a dull, dated copy of something we’ve seen before — and takes way too long to ever get moving. (It never really does.) In the end, an unimaginative script and underutilized actors make The Little Things as trivial as the title implies.