In a small mining town, an accident has killed several workers, leaving a lone survivor, Amos Jenkins (Boyd Holbrook). The townspeople are furious and blame the mines owner, the towns wealthiest resident, a cold, heartless man, who many suspect caused the accident with his shortcuts and cheap business practices. The town is out for blood, but only one of them, literally, as soon after the accident, the mine owners teenage son turns up dead. Little Accidents is yet another example of these dark modern noir type films, that have become so popular the past decade, and normally I am a huge fan of them. This film however, may have had the modern noir feeling, but actually had the old noir story line AKA slow, strange, and confusing. I chose this film because one of it's stars is Jacob Lofland, who at just 21 years old, has only been acting for 5 years, but he is a natural in every sense of the word. Every performance he has given has been better than the one before it. His talent has lead him to leading roles in the Maze Runner series, as well as the AMC show, The Son. Being as fond of his style as I am, I decide to go back and watch his filmography from the beginning, and that's where I found Little Accidents. While Lofland's part was minor, you are still able to see some of the skills that brought him to where he is today. Paired with Elizabeth Banks and Josh Lucas, this was one fantastic cast, featured in a terrific setting, and I was sure this film was a can't miss, but the story had other ideas. Little Accidents was all over the place, some of things that happened have nothing to do with the story, and make little sense. The Bottom Line, don't let a terrific cast fool you, this film is slow and all over the place. The mystery, isn't much of one and the story will leave you scratching your head.

Just finished this movie and wow, totally overwhelming, sat down and cried for five minutes.I have to watch it again to see if it's as good as I think it is, but I'm afraid to, the last scene was so incredible with voice over from the previous scene.Oh dear it is so wonderful, I have to see it again and again.The only other films that have done this to me are "21 Grams" which I've seen several times, and "Elephant Man" which I saw once and will never see again.These characters were so natural, it was like you were there. So muted, tamped down, real.I'll watch it again this evening.

"You gonna be the big shot that closes down the Bonford Coal Company? We lost men in there. I'd keep to myself, if I was you. Just keep telling them you don't remember. Try to get back to work, back to being productive."You made plans for a cozy movie night ? Are you sitting all comfortably in your seat buried under bags of chips and a bottle of Coca-Cola at your fingertips? Then I advise you to put on another movie than "Little accidents" because this movie won't make you happy. Not even a little bit. It shows a series of truly sad and depressing circumstances and occurrences. A fatal mine accident leaving 10 miners dead, an unfortunate incident with consequences, the wrenching dilemmas, the immense grief after losing a loved one, not knowing what's the fate of a missing person and the misunderstanding within a marriage. It's all included in this social drama, set in a dying town that looks so gray as if it was covered by a layer of coal dust. A story about two people in this "village without a future" whose lives run parallel, without them realizing it, with several points of contact : a dramatic event, the grueling truth that they keep secret and the decision whether or not to reveal it. Eventually, these parallel lines intersect and end in the same way."Little Accidents" is a melodrama in which various interest groups are diametrically opposed to each other. On the one hand you have the working people whose lives depend on whether or not they close the Bonford Coal Company. And on the other you have the representatives of the victims and the unions who want to sue the company for negligence and pursuit of profit on the back of the underprivileged workers, making them work in hazardous conditions. Just like Amos Jenkins (Boyd Holbrook) did. He's the sole survivor of the mine accident. After a rehab, he returned to his town in West Virginia and finds himself immediately confronted with this dilemma. He's constantly harassed by both interest groups. At the same time we meet Owen Briggs (Jacob Lofland), son of one of the victims in this mine disaster. His mother Kendra (Chloë Sevigny) tries to pick up the thread again, while Owen takes care of his younger brother James (Beau Wright), an endearing little boy who has Down syndrome. Although Kendra overwhelms both boys with electronic gizmo's, Owen is still struggling to integrate into the community and seeks the company of a group of young people who in the end only bully and exploit him.The central figure of this group of young people is JT Doyle (Travis Tope), son of Bill (Josh Lucas) and Diane Doyle (Elizabeth Banks), leader and the one who turns up to be missing one day. The only one who knows the true facts about this disappearance, is Owen. But anxiously he keeps his mouth shut about it. This ensures the parents of JT facing a period of long waiting for the outcome of the investigation. The reason why this secret remains with Owen, is the fact that JT's father is one of the board members of the coal mine, who could be responsible for the fatal accident. Probably Owen thinks he could be accused of acting in an act of revenge. The moment the statement of lightning will be seen as untrue, his position as a director of this company will be practically untenable. Diane suffers the most under the disappearance of her son, while father Bill launches himself entirely into his work, and feels more and more neglected which leads to a surprising affair. The result is that the lives of Amos, Owen and Diana get intermingled because of these circumstances. It's a pretty depressing film. Don't expect smiling faces. It feels more like a competition in "who looks the most depressing". Holbrook plays a surprising role as the half-crippled laborer who's facing a difficult choice. The choice between the relatives of the victims and the non-affected who still benefit from the fact that the only industry in their town still exists. The helplessness and at the same time the shame of being the only survivor, is written all over his face. "It was a waste to save me,if you think about it. I ain't got no family, no kids."as he admitted himself. Also Lofland (known for his role as a helpful teen in "Mud") plays an outstanding role. That intolerable burden he's carrying is played by him in a masterful way. Even in the quiet moments you can see that suffering. Elizabeth Banks (known as Effie Trinket in "The Hunger Games" and as Lydia Mercer in "Man on a Ledge") manages to bring a difficult role to a successful conclusion. She has no problems to bring a mix of diverse emotions: pride, despair, reconciliation, loneliness and dejection. All in all a talented cast. "Little accidents" isn't a perfect film and has a tendency to become cheesy. It's only sadness you witness and some used themes aren't very original. After a while I got the feeling that it surely was overly packed with gloomy events. But in retrospect you can only admit that this is just part of everyday life. However, the lived through renditions and worked out characters ensure that this gloomy and dark film still makes a good impression. In other words, a wonderful film that shows how disaster can strike mercilessly. More reviews here : http://opinion-as-a-moviefreak.blogspot.be

"Little Accidents" is based on screenwriter Sara Coangelo's short 2010 film of the same name. Shot in West Virginia, the chief protagonist is Amos Jenkins, the lone survivor of a mining accident in which ten of his co-workers are killed. Coangelo's central conflict is interesting: will Amos spill the beans and side with the union who want to sue the company for more money? Or will he conveniently "forget" about what transpired so he won't possibly shut down the company and jeopardize his job (the idea of not working bothers salt-of-the-earth Amos, no end).Coangelo is much less successful with a sub-plot (or a secondary main plot if you will) involving Owen, the son of one of the dead miners, who accidentally kills J.T., the son of a middle management executive at the coal company, Bill Doyle. After bullying Owen, J.T. chases him in the woods, only to be felled by a stone, which Owen hurls at him in self-defense. There's very little interesting about the tortured depression Owen goes through for the rest of the film and even his predictable confession to Doyle and his wife, Diane, proves much more of a relief than cathartic moment for the film goer, at film's end.One of the big problems with "Little Accidents" is the pacing is extremely lugubrious. The plot is dragged out to the point where one practically finds oneself screaming for the film's scenarist to pick things up! Case in point: the Doyles meeting with the police and subsequent search for the missing boy. Both those scenes could have been cut to the bare minimum to convey what was happening.Coangelo's characters aren't exactly complete caricatures but more melodramatic stock types. Coangelo imagines what mining folks are like but doesn't quite capture any idiosyncrasies. Instead, Amos meets Diane at wouldn't you know it, a Bible study group! The affair between Amos and Diane is perhaps the most perfunctory and predictable aspect of the film. Rex Reed of "The Observer" is right to conclude that "Little Accidents" is nothing more than a "backwater soap opera without the keener character development the movie needs."The film has some excellent cinematography as it was shot on location by the talented cinematographer Rachel Morrison. The music, with a haunting score by Marcelo Zarvos, manages to convey the bleak mining town atmosphere utilizing a lone piano and a few violin notes. However, like the film's glacial pacing, the music manages to be over used. The performances are uniformly excellent with special kudos to Josh Lofland as Owen, who once again shines as he did in his earlier break out role, in "Mud."Ultimately I must agree with Glenn Kinney of RogertEbert.com who writes that the narrative is marked by "the clichéd solemnity of almost each and every scene." Ms. Coangelo would do well to base her next screenplay on an actual historical incident. That way she can avoid the earnest and ordinary story that she has proffered up here.