Incredibly Small | Film review

From the moment Anne (Burke) and Amir (Gurewitz) flip on the lights of their new studio apartment, a 300-foot, water-damaged shithole in some unnamed “bohemian” Chicago neighborhood, it’s clear that their little experiment in romantic cohabitation is doomed to fail. Of course, the cramped living quarters aren’t really the problem. While most dying-relationship movies tend to divide our sympathies and toy with our allegiances, Incredibly Small makes no bones about where the blame lies for this imminent breakup. A 23-year-old escalator attendant—he calls himself a sculptor but has never put chisel to stone—Amir is the kind of cad whose idea of a fun day spent with his girlfriend is having her watch him play basketball (badly). Anne, devoted to her studies and ready to make a real home, can do much better than this shiftless layabout. Much of the film’s running time is spent waiting for her to realize that.

If both its insights and its pleasures are modest—here’s to truth in titular advertising—Incredibly Small still gets a lot of comedic mileage out of the epic failings of a toxically bad boyfriend. Early on, a handsome, erudite neighbor (Karpovsky) appears and begins gently competing for Anne’s affections. In a different movie, this snooty schemer would have registered as the villain; here, you’re almost inclined to root for him. An accomplished first feature from the Chicago-based Peterson, Incredibly Small gradually morphs from a comedy of discomfort into something more meaningful: a romance undone by the call of adulthood. Sometimes loving someone means being willing to spring for the one bedroom.