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Little Manhattan"Nothing's as big as your first love," reads the tagline of this romantic comedy: not even the towering buildings of Manhattan that dwarf young protagonist Gabe (Hutcherson). Scootering around his own Little Manhattan - the 10 blocks around his home - 11-year-old Gabe is in pursuit of one thing only: his schoolmate and karate partner Rosemary Telesco (Ray). As the only slightly older, but very much wiser Gabe narrates, we watch him stunned by the first flushes of romance: he used to think girls gave him "cooties", after all. But Gabe can't possibly tell his friends he likes a girl, and he'd do anything to keep it from his parents.
It's observations like this that help make Little Manhattan an exercise in nostalgia for adults as well as a point of more immediate recognition for children. Each moment of Gabe's infatuation is lovingly recounted: touches, glances, the feeling in the pit of his stomach: crucially, with a wry sense of humour.
This does err on the soppy side, with plenty of hand-holding and walks in the park to the tune of a cutesy soundtrack. But subplots involving Gabe's parents help create an edge. Ably played by Bradley Whitford and Cynthia Nixon, they're a separated couple who still live together, so he's forced to answer the door to her dates. Less successful are Rosemary's constant assertions about girls maturing faster than boys: it's a well-worn theme and repeated more than seems necessary in a film that's generally strong on observations about gender and relationships.
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