‘A Little Prayer’ review: A quiet and beautiful portrait of family

A Little Prayer explores family dynamics between the family you’re born into and the family you choose.

Family is complicated. Angus MacLachlan’s A Little Prayer follows a southern family during a tumultuous period, capturing the unique mixture of love and pain that is most apparent in familial relationships. David Strathairn and Jane Levy deliver wonderful performances as Bill and Tammy, anchoring a beautifully humanistic film. MacLachlan’s script deftly engages with sensitive topics such as infidelity, abortion, and PTSD by focusing on the people instead of the issue. A Little Prayer paints portraits of people who love, people who make mistakes, and people who make choices that may not feel right but often feel understandable.

Parent trap.

Strathairn’s Bill Brass is the quintessential American patriarch, and A Little Prayer drops us into his life at a point where the actions of his children, particularly his son David, set him on an introspective journey. Throughout the film, Bill contemplates whether it is wise or right to intervene in their lives. MacLachlan eschews any heavy exposition, instead offering insight into these characters through the conversations they both have and avoid having with each other.

So much of the film in the early moments center on conversations between family members where very little is said, but a lot is communicated. Tension floats just beneath the surface in soft moments as Tammy, Bill, and his wife Venida discuss David working late, each of them dancing around the question of why David is spending so much time at work. Bill and David struggle to even pretend to have a normal conversation, as David cuts off every attempt Bill makes to reach out.

Sister, sister.

The arrival of his daughter, Patti, and granddaughter, Hadley, is a big enough disruption to finally break the status quo. Anna Camp’s Patti is a whirlwind. A Little Prayer is subdued and Patti provides an energy that prevents the film from feeling inert. The nature of most of these characters means that there are no big confrontations or explosive arguments. Patti is the complete opposite. She makes her opinions known and expresses her feelings in a way that no one else in the family can. Camp imbues Patti with a vulnerability that saves the character from becoming the stereotypical “hot mess” and succeeds in bringing to life a character who is honest and blunt without feeling rude or mean-spirited.

The bottom line.

MacLachlan’s most outstanding achievement is in presenting each character in a way that is somehow both objective and subjective. Bill has tremendous love for both David and Patti. He agonizes over the best way to help each of them. It’s also apparent that Bill may not have always been as observant or involved as he could have been. David is in the middle of blowing up his life, but he isn’t a cold-hearted villain. There’s so much to learn about this family in the relatively short run time, but it’s also clear that there is so much more that isn’t seen or that is still to come for these characters.

There’s a scene near the end of the film where Bill and Tammy stop to take in a piece of art at a museum, and the camera holds on the painting, giving you an opportunity to absorb and digest the landscape. A Little Prayer does the same thing with its characters. There’s no feeling of judgment toward anyone in the Brass family, and the film refuses to make excuses for any of them either. The film gently invites you to be a fly on the wall – to really see and understand these people. It’s a great reminder that people are not just one thing. More often than not, most of us are just trying to do the best we can.

A Little Prayer is out now in theaters. Watch the trailer below. 

Images courtesy of Music Box Films.

Jose Cordova

Jose Cordova is based in the San Francisco Bay Area. A lifelong appreciator of film, television, and video games, he can usually be found sitting on his couch desperately trying to make a dent in his watchlist.