The Little Hours (2017): Another fantastic Baena/Plaza find

The Little Hours, 2017, directed by Jeff Baena, streamed on Prime Video, 4 stars.

OK. This is the second time in a couple of weeks I stumbled across a Jeff Baena/Aubrey Plaza collaboration, and the second time I spent the better part of 90 minutes giggling like a schoolgirl.

This movie was funny. Odd, because I would never have thought I would find anything at all amusing about nuns in a 14th-century convent. But I could not stop with the giggling.

Here's the deal: The supervising priest (John C. Reilly), the mother superior (Molly Shannon) and the community of sisters (Plaza, Alison Brie and Kate Micucci the three central characters) at this medieval nunnery spend much of their time doing unsanctioned things to, for and with each other. And in everything they do, they act and speak as if they grew up about six centuries later.

Everybody brings 20th- and 21st-century sensibilities and attitudes to the party. The whole scenario is weirdly off-balance, the source of much of the sly humor. It's not at all off-putting. It's just damn funny.

The three nuns get into all kinds of silly circumstance involving a lot of the sacramental wine, a philandering gardener, an impromptu lesbian sex romp, a coven's fertility ceremony and a murderous lord. It might sound ridiculous and over-the-top, but trust me, it's all done quite tastefully.

What a find this was, along with Life After Beth, which I wrote about here. Baena wrote and directed three other films. I have no choice but to hunt those things down. 

     
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