Little Voice MPAA Rating: R Entertainment: +1 Content: -3

LV, short for Little Voice (Jane Horrocks), and her obnoxious mother Mari (Brenda Blethyn) live together in a rundown house in London. LV stays in her room listening to her beloved deceased father's records, ignoring her mother's incessant angry cursing. Mari, her mother, spends evenings trying to pick up men in bars. When she meets sleazy Ray (Michael Caine), a talent agent, she brings him home. He hears LV singing and recognizes her ability to channel voices of Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Billie Holliday and Ella Fitzgerald. Ray is even willing to romance the repulsive Mari to have access to her daughter and talk her into appearing at the neighborhood club. LITTLE VOICE's one great scene is the lovely LV's performance. She belts out those wonderful songs of the 40's one after the other to a full house of ecstatic fans. Greedy Ray and Mari both see LV as their ticket out of poverty, but LV has other plans. Unfortunately, the unlovely characters of Ray and Mari are so abrasive the movie is hard to watch.

Chain-smoking Mari curses like a sailor, and especially despicable is her verbal abuse of LV. She and Ray spew out most of the 38 obscenities and 12 regular profanities. They also drink heavily, engage in suggestive petting and crude sexual conversation. Sex is implied twice - once they are interrupted on the living room sofa and another time they are in a bouncing parked car. In one scene Ray auditions some topless dancers who wear thong bikinis and no tops. Buxom Mari wears low cut dresses that reveal much cleavage. She hates her daughter's obsession with her dead father. In fact, LV seems mentally unbalanced and imagines her father's appearance when she is upset. When Ray pushes LV to do another show, she slaps him, causing him to fall down stairs. Frayed electrical wiring catches the old house on fire, and LV is trapped in her bedroom. This gentle, quiet girl living in a cesspool of bawdiness and crass behavior is heartbreaking until finally she gathers the courage to take control of her life. Unfortunately, the audience has to suffer along with her amidst filthy language and sexually crude behavior.

Preview Reviewer: Mary Draughon
Distributor: Miramax Films, 375 Greenwich, NY, NY 10013