`Little Voice' – Deserves to Be Heard by Homer Yen (c) 1999
`Little Voice' is one of those many offbeat comedies that depicts and odd slice of British life and those that inhabit its strange little world. At the center is LV (Jane Horrocks), short for her nickname of Little Voice, which was given to her by her mom. LV is a very shy and almost reclusive girl who seems to always stare at the ground and bites her bottom lip in fear whenever someone talks to her. When she speaks, she emits a wavering, mousy voice. It seems that the only thing that makes her comfortable are the pleasant thoughts of her now-deceased father and listening to a large record collection that he had left to her. When she feels threatened, which seems to be a majority of the time, she drowns herself in the music that was left to her by her dad, which she blares over the phonograph.
Any chance that she has of becoming a normal girl who can interact freely and confidently with others is constantly being challenged. Her mom, Mari (Brenda Blethyn), is her biggest obstacle. Her wild ways, LV believes, led to her father's early death. She constantly puts LV down and is openly annoyed with her. The mom is also reckless in her ways and promiscuous in her actions. To get the attention of men, she gleefully says, `let's roll about.' One of the men that she winds up with is Ray Say (Michael Caine). He was a once-respected talent agent who is now relegated to scouting for strippers in a not-so-nice part of the city.
As in most situations where the only way is up, everyone is looking for that frequently elusive route that will allow them to leave their dismal lives behind. For LV, it might be a young telephone repairman (an underutilized Ewan McGregor) that she recently met. He has a fond interest in pigeons, and somewhat understands LV's situation, for she is similarly caged up from the rest of the world. For Mari, it might be Ray Say. Sure, he's no longer the force that he used to be, but he still has a way with words, and those words speak volumes to the star-struck Mari. And for Ray Say, his ticket back to his previous stature might be LV. Say makes the startling discovery that under certain conditions, LV can magically transform herself, enabling her to sing uncannily like some of the greatest divas of yesteryear, whether it's the breathy Marilyn Monroe or the brash Shirley Bassey or the wistful Judy Garland. She is a singer/impressionist extraordinaire. `You're sitting on a gold mine,' Say says to Mari. `Dreams that you dare to dream…she can make them come true.' The focus of the film now shifts to a test of wills between Say's and Mari's desire to exploit her versus LV's simple wish to find normalcy.
In the end, I felt that the story was uneven at times (the implied romance was unnecessary) and the resolution seemed unrealistically quick. But Horrocks is a real gem. It's incredible how a fearful child can completely and believably transform herself into a singing dynamo that slinks and shimmies on stage. She's real fun to watch and is a great singer too. In fact, she sings all of the songs that you hear in the movie. Caine effectively lends his talents as an oily huckster, although in the end his character turns very mean for no apparently good reason. Also, Blethyn is an unexpected comic force as a maddening, wench-like mum. Several nice performances from the cast make this odd slice of British life something to be heard and seen.
Grade: B
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