For cinephiles familiar with the film-distribution phenomenon known as “dump month,” expectations concerning The Little Things were decidedly mixed. Yes, the new movie from writer-director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side) starred the award-caliber actors Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto. And yes, it promised to be the rare made-for-adults feature that eschewed pre-sold intellectual property in favor of original storytelling. Yet the fact of its January release date, assigned before COVID-19 altered studio calendars, simply couldn’t be ignored. Since the cutoff for Academy Award eligibility traditionally falls on Dec. 31, wasn’t the scheduling decision by Warner Bros. a tacit admission that its prestige vehicle secretly stunk?

Having now watched Hancock’s latest, I am pleased to report that it is not a bad movie so much as half of a decent one: a picture that clears its throat for an hour but ultimately manages to shout. Available at home due to its studio’s harebrained straight-to-HBO Max scheme, The Little Things is nevertheless worth a trip to the theater in municipalities that still permit such excursions. Indeed, one could argue that the film is of a type most obviously enhanced by the theatrical experience. Star-powered, sporadically tense, and instantly forgettable, it practically cries out for a darkened auditorium and a king-size bucket of popcorn.