James Gray
Little Odessa

Little Odessa is a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. A micro-fragment of the Big Apple, where normal daily life mixes with crime, where hitmen act and then disappear, where every family has its secrets to keep. Joshua Shapira (Tim Roth) is one of those silent hitmen, ready to appear and disappear. He returns to Little Odessa after a long absence due to the killing of an important man in Russian crime. He finds his family who has rejected him in the person of his father Arkady (Maximilian Schell), finds his terminally ill mother, and his young brother Reuben (Edward Furlong). Against this decadent backdrop of a New York perpetually whitened by winter, James Gray constructs his first cinematic murmur.

A complex work in its apparent simplicity, "Little Odessa" was positively received by critics in 1994, winning the "Silver Lion-Special Jury Prize for directing" in Venice, as well as other minor awards. It's an interesting feature film because it emerged out of nowhere (no trace of the previous Gray), but above all because it presented us a director who, at just 25 years old, already showed he had clear ideas.

"Little Odessa" is a "dry" film, classic in form and substance, which, while originating from the gangster movie genre, manages to find its well-defined place. The intersection between micro (the family) and macrocosm (New York) succeeds well. Just as solid is the cinematic progression that Gray gives to his work: never too inclined to become a pure thriller, well-balanced in leaving behind the gangster legacy to transform into a family drama with strong and dark shades. Joshua, well played by Tim Roth, is not just a man now rejected by the city and the environment where he was nurtured, but also a figure his own family tries to distance. Much like Carlito Brigante in "Carlito's Way," it becomes difficult for Joshua to leave this world, which too soon intertwines with a complex family situation. The epilogue is the inevitable collision of two universes no longer superimposable or reconcilable.

Without ever exceeding in sensationalistic drama, without ever focusing on the purely thrilling aspect of the story, James Gray molds an essential debut work, free of citations and unnecessary cinematic frills.

The sober style (according to some, too much), the "realist" cinematography by Tom Richmond, and the good acting performances (notably Vanessa Redgrave in the role of the mother) make "Little Odessa" a small gem.