Little Tickles (2018)

Little Tickles is special because it finds an honest, fiercely alive way to talk about trauma without letting the story be defined by it—turning pain into motion, rhythm, and a hard-won kind of light. Adapted from Andréa Bescond’s autobiographical stage work, it moves with the unpredictability of memory, slipping between drama, dark humor, and moments of surreal clarity, all anchored by Bescond’s raw, commanding performance as a dancer fighting for her own voice. The filmmaking is energetic and inventive, using dance not as decoration but as a language for what can’t be said, and it never mistakes shock for truth. It’s a tough watch at times, and anyone sensitive to themes of child sexual abuse should be cautious, but if you can meet it where it is, it’s deeply moving, compassionate, and ultimately galvanizing.

Little Tickles is clearly trying to turn an autobiographical story of childhood sexual abuse into something survivable and even empowering, using dance and flashes of dark humor to show how trauma lives in the body. When it works, it’s raw, urgent, and anchored by Andréa Bescond’s all-in performance, with some striking physical staging that says what dialogue can’t. But the film can feel uneven and tonally jumpy, lurching from inventive to oddly soapy, and a few supporting characters are drawn so broadly they risk flattening the emotional truth. If you’re looking for a steady, subtle drama or you’re sensitive to intense material around abuse (even without explicit depiction), this may feel more exhausting than cathartic.