Little Soldier
2016 · 15m · United Kingdom
Directed by Stella Corradi
Genres: coming-of-age, dark comedy, drama
Tones: darkly comic, tender, whimsical
10 year old, Anya (Amaris Miller) lives and cares for her mother, Amanda (Zawe Ashton). When Derek (Morgan Watkins) threatens to come between them, Anya takes matters into her own hands in order to protect her home. Little Soldier is a darkly comic drama about the power of one girl's imagination to change her own world. Written and directed by Stella Corradi and shot on 16mm by DoP Robbie Ryan, made under Film London's 2015 London Calling scheme.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a well-made indie drama that knows its emotional beats, but it doesn't quite have the tonal swerve or narrative audacity to genuinely surprise—the darkly comic protection fantasy is more assured than subversive.
Corradi's command of 16mm texture and the film's careful modulation between whimsy and dread situate it firmly in a lineage of British social realism inflected with magical thinking; Robbie Ryan's cinematography is the conversation piece here.
The unstated decision to play Anya's protective schemes with genuine tenderness rather than irony—to let her imagination breathe without winking—is what transforms a premise about childhood agency into something that actually resonates.