I genuinely wanted to love Small Small Thing. Really. But it's hard to love a documentary that has so much potential and falls just shy of the mark. It's blatantly obvious that the flimmakers grew attached to Olivia, the subject of the film, but the film left me with far more questions than answers "“ and not in a good way.
Small Small Thing documents the story of Olivia Zinnah, a young girl in Liberia who was brutally raped and sadly had her medical care mishandled. In Liberia, rape is not uncommon, but victim-shaming is an even worse problem, as clearly evidenced in the film. Olivia and her mother had to leave their village since her mother wouldn't retract her accusation against Olivia's rapist, a man in their village who was also a member of their family.
Olivia's case went through all kinds of political offices and miles of red tape to the point where it no longer even made sense, and the documentary followed much of that. Perhaps that is where the film went wrong. The question and answer session I sat in after the film actually provided much more useful information than the film itself"“ if the film had much more clear-cut answers, it would have been much more impactful.
