The Little Hours Are Anything but Holy

The Little Hours (2017) is a raunchy comedy film by Jeff Baena that follows the tale of three monastic nuns as they struggle to live in their convent in 1347. It is based on Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron, which is a fourteenth-century text that is famous for breaking the medieval norms at the time. In the film Sister Alessandra, Sister Ginevra, and Sister Fernanda all struggle with their monastic lives. When Masseto, a runaway slave, begins working as a groundskeeper at the convent, the nuns become infatuated with him. They see it as a chance to break away from their monastic restraints and enjoy life. What unfolds is a chaotic mess involving sex, witchcraft, and plenty of satire.

The film's central historical message is that all humans, even the holiest, have worldly temptations and commit sin. The film makes the audience remember that just because these women are nuns, it does not mean they do not have independent thoughts. It takes the pure image of what a nun is supposed to be and allows the audience to now see these women without their habits as normal women in society. The Little Hours does show many historical accuracies to how nuns lived in the Central Middle Ages. The first of these being how many jobs we see the Sisters do around the convent. As we discussed in class, "nuns performed tasks of needlework such as embroidering robes and textiles for use in church services" (Cartwright). Sister Alessandra is a master embroideress in the film and her works are sold at markets in town. Along with embroidery, the nuns clean the convent, work in the garden, wash clothes, read, and write illustrations in the film. It does a very good job of showing the duties that nuns had when they lived in a convent in the 12th through 14th centuries. Another important aspect of a nun's life that is portrayed in the film is their devotion to prayer. From class, we learned that nuns usually prayed about seven times a day. In the first full day that takes place in The Little Hours, the nuns pray a total of four times and go to confession once. While this is not as much as real nuns would pray every day, the film puts a good effort towards showing the nuns' devotion to pray and worship. In terms of visual accuracies, the set and costumes represent the time period well. It does not paint the Middle Ages as being a dark and muddy place as many Hollywood films have done before. The convent is in rural Northern Italy, a good distance away from any city or other civilization. Female monasteries were usually laid out in a mirror image and "The heart of the complex was still the cloister which ran around an open space" (Cartwright). The monastery in the film shows the cloister running all around the inner perimeter. The costumes in the film are fairly simple as the habits of nuns should be. Father Tommasso frequently visits the convent to lead them in service because "Unlike monks, a nun (or any woman for that matter) could not become a priest and for this reason services in a nunnery required the regular visit of a male priest" (Cartwright). 

      

                  

The concept of medievalism does not necessarily take place in the film. Baena does not rely on bringing medieval stereotypes into the film. His main tool is using satire to break down the image of what a religious order would look like at this time. By doing this some inaccuracies are implemented into the film but done so purposefully. The first of these being the Sisters' use of language throughout the film. They curse vigorously throughout the film towards not only each other but even Father Tommasso and Bishop Bartolomeo. There is a scene where the nuns steal wine from the cellar and smoke. Sister Fernanda even copies another nun's confession and takes part in a cult of witches. This all creates a hilarious experience for the audience because of the contradictions that the film creates between reality and fiction. The most influential difference that Baena brings to the film is the nuns' desire to have sex. Nuns, of course, are supposed to be virgins because "physical purity was considered the only starting point from which to reach spiritual purity" (Cartwright). While these inaccuracies bring more humor than harm. Baena takes one subtle dig at how monasteries made money and how much the church was focused on acquiring wealth. Bishop Bartolomeo comes to visit the convent but does not worry himself with how the nuns are acting. He is extremely concerned with the profit that the convent is making. Convents did make money by selling goods, donations, etc. but Baena implies the greediness of the convent to be a priority. He emphasizes the stereotype of how the Church is in control of everything and is only a business. While the Church in many ways acted as a business in the Middle Ages, Baena's portrayal is just not completely accurate.

When The Little Hours debuted it brought a massive uproar in the Catholic community. Many protests and petitions started aginst the film such as " The Catholic group America Needs Fatima recently launched an online petition opposing Jeff Baena’s comedy about three foul-mouthed, sexually liberated nuns" (Winfrey). Many Catholics saw the film as an insult to their religion and heritage. The executive director of America Need's Fatima said the film "'wrongly features priests and nuns taking part in immoral acts and using foul language'" (Winfrey). It is no surprise that the film brought lots of controversy with the immense amount of satire that Baena used. Also, the film was only released in select theaters because of its immense controversy. 

  

Overall, the film has lots of historical accuracies and inaccuracies. Could this film be used in a classroom effectively? Probably not. While the film shows good conceptions of the day to day lives of nuns in the Central Middle Ages, the satire and humor take away from the historical effects of the movie. Also, it would depend on the level of education the film was to be shown to because of some of the more "graphic" scenes throughout the movie. This film is simply based on satire of the traditional nun. Baena achieves his goal of breaking how the stereotypical nun should act but still keeps a relative medieval feel to the film. This is a film someone should watch if they are looking for a movie that does not take history so seriously. At first glance, The Little Hours appears to be an innocent family movie, however, this film is anything but holy.

                                                                             

Works Cited

Cartwright, Mark. "The Daily Life of Medieval Nuns." Ancient History Encyclopedia, 19 December 2018, https://www.ancient.eu/article/1298/the-daily-life-of-medieval-nuns/.

The Little Hours. Directed by Jeff Baena, performances by Alison Brie, Dave Franco, and Kate Micucci, Gunpowder & Sky, 2017. 

Winfrey, Graham. "'The Little Hours': Catholic Groups Slam Sundance Comedy for 'Immortal Acts'." IndieWire, 7 July 2017, https://www.indiewire.com/2017/07/the-little-hours-catholic-groups-slam-sundance-aubrey-plaza-alison-brie-1201851161/.