The Atlantic

The Big Charm of Marsai Martin’s <em>Little</em>

An inversion of Tom Hanks’s classic body-switch movie, <em>Big</em>, the film is<em> </em>a delightful vehicle for the 14-year-old actor, who also served as executive producer.
Source: Eli Joshua Adé / Universal Pictures

In the 1988 Tom Hanks film Big, a 12-year-old boy named Josh Baskin (David Moscow) changes his life forever to impress an older girl. After being told that he’s too short for a carnival ride, he enters a strange arcade machine and earnestly wishes to be “big.” The following day, Josh wakes up as a 30-year-old man (played by Hanks), whose initial confusion about the corporeal switch later gives way to comedic hijinks and wholesome reflection.

The chief location for Big Josh’s fast-tracking into adulthood is the company where he finds work soon after the

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