An American comedy in the middle age that follows the escape of a slave from his master, but his escape landed him in the hands of some emotional nuns who may tempt him more.
No matter how obvious the set-up - what if men and women of the cloth were ... rude and sexy??? - the cast gives every scene just enough of a deadpan spin to sell it, at least for the first hour.
Plaza's not merely bored and making a joke of the outbursts; she's angry and raw and raunchy. There's a darkness to her stare that's a challenge. She's got a bit of the old school femme fatale in her, but she's arrived at the wrong time.
The strategy works surprisingly well. I liked a lot of writer-director Jeff Baena's picture; it may be a one-joke movie, but I've seen comedies recently that would've killed for that many.
True, The Little Hours is essentially a one-joke comedy - but most of the jokes under the umbrellas of that one joke are pretty damn, I mean darn, funny.