THE BIGGEST LITTLE FARM

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Storyline (warning: spoilers)

From the opening minutes of The Biggest Little Farm, John Chester makes it clear his utopian vision is going to fail. With his wife Molly, a culinary writer, the filmmaker abandoned their Santa Monica home to launch a sustainable farm an hour outside the city. The movie tracks this epic saga across seven years of hiccups and tragic developments as the reality of taming nature settles in. A gorgeous and often devastating look at good intentions slamming into harsh practical challenges, The Biggest Little Farm is the rare eco-friendly documentary that reaches beyond the celebratory formula to explore the application of its environmental message in detail. It’s a remarkable educational experience for anyone eager to go back to the basics. In the process, it arrives at a deeper understanding of the underlying impulse, while delivering an emotionally resonant narrative with plenty of cute animals to spare.
Chester, a television cinematographer whose credits include Safari Vet School, seemingly had his camera running at every pertinent moment. When the couple first arrives at their sprawling new home, the terrain is anything but fertile. The ground is a cracked, dreary wasteland, the orchards need a lot of work, and the animals need to be seriously tamed. At first, their ace in the hole comes in the form of veteran farmer Alan York, who guides them through a process he assures them will take time to fit together. But when York abruptly drops out of the picture a year into the experience, the Chesters are left coping with a project far more unwieldy than they could have anticipated.
Biggest Little Farm provides a handy guide to anyone dreaming of escaping city life to run their own show. Above all else, the movie demonstrates just how little nature welcomes good intentions with open arms — and why it’s worth seeking the hug anyway.