Tiny: A Story About Living Small

This appropriately compact documentary (just over an hour) offers an eye-opening look at the growing "tiny house" movement in America. Filmmakers Merete Mueller and Christopher Smith capture a summer-long project to build Smith's postage-stamp-size cabin in a friend's backyard in Boulder, CO, which is then transported to a nearby plot of land. The same amount of effort could just as easily have gone into making a children's outdoor playhouse, but Smith is quite serious about living in his new home—which boasts an internal area of less than 200 square feet—for decades to come. And he's not the only one: Tiny takes viewers to various places in the U.S. West in order to meet a number of folk who have built and now live in homes that range from 84 to 200-plus sq. ft., with many of these structures sitting on wheeled platforms rather than actual foundations (in part to get around zoning rules). Quick tours of these houses underscore the obvious—an efficient use of space is crucial—but there are also fascinating little revelations, such as hidden compartments and combined functions for moveable surfaces. As to the important question of why people do this, the film argues that owners of tiny houses tend to become or remain debt-free, experience lower stress, and have greater work options. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)