EVERY LITTLE THING (2025) - Mark Reviews Movies

Every Little Thing, Kino Lorber

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Review by Mark Dujsik | January 9, 2025

The birds would seem to be the stars of director Sally Aitken's Every Little Thing, a documentary about an independent hummingbird rescue in Hollywood run by one determined woman. She's Terry Masear, a retired teacher who seems to have educated herself on everything one would need to or could know about hummingbirds. She has been rescuing the tiny creatures since 2004 without any pay for her work. Yes, the birds are special, but Masear isn't too far behind them.

There is something almost magical about hummingbirds, as anyone who has seen the tiny avians in person already knows. Their physiology seems impossible, because those wings flap dozens of times per second, depending on the species, and they fly in any direction, including backwards and upside down—a trait shared by no other bird on this planet. Mesear surprisingly doesn't offer much trivia about hummingbirds over the course of the film, but that makes sense. She's not here to educate us about the facts of the birds but to show us that even the smallest of creatures are deserving of respect and compassion. How we treat the tiniest of animals, perhaps, reflects our own humanity in a significant way.

If that is the case, Mesear might be on a different level of empathy and care than most humans alive at the moment. Aitken frames this story as the tales of several hummingbirds that come under Mesear's care—orphaned ones, injured ones, ones somehow abused by humans. That last one is almost impossible to consider, especially seeing the faces, hearing the voices, and witnessing the concern of everyone who brings a hummingbird to Mesear.

Every other thing about their lives seems to be put on pause in that moment. Speaking to the bird rescuer, these kind strangers talk of nothing else, except to wonder if the bird can be saved or healed, to whisper softly to the hummingbird or offer words of encouragement, and to repeat just how special these little things are. To be fair, the one hummingbird that arrives in need care due to human mistreatment seems to be have been abused unintentionally, but it's the one time we hear anything other than thoughtfulness and tenderness in Mesear's voice. We don't blame her. In fact, her reaction seems like an understatement at that point in the film.

It really does make us root for the tiny birds in ways that we might not anticipate, and yes, a lot of that comes from the mere sight of the hummingbirds themselves—frightened, exhausted or unconscious, succumbing to their injuries or making steps of progress toward recuperation, finally being buried in Mesear's backyard or flying on their own. Aitken, by the way, doesn't do anything to anthropomorphize the birds, apart from putting the names Mesear gives them on screen. That's also part of the subject's philosophy, too.

They are simply a part of a nature—a wonderful part, to be sure—that is cruel, being devastated by human activity, and not going to give a hummingbird a break, simply because it's such a fascinating little creature. The birds have what they need to survive, and Mesear is only here to get these unfortunate specimens back to a condition in which they can survive on their own.

We watch, then, as Mesear feeds the even tinier chicks—often left alone in a nest after their mother dies—with narrow bits of squeezable piping, bathe the hummingbird that must have been put into a bowl of sugary water, and encourage and almost teach some of the birds with injured wings how to fly. Her equipment for all of this—a series of cages of different sizes and a complete aviary in her backyard—is impressive, and if one didn't know she does this on a volunteer basis and without any specific educational background in zoology or veterinary medicine, her technique for rehabilitating the birds appears to be that of an expert. Of course, Mesear is one now, after two decades of rescuing hummingbirds and even writing a book on the subject, but one does wonder exactly how she learned to do all of this.

Such questions don't really matter, however, because Mesear does the work, clearly knows exactly how to do it, and seems to succeed more than uncaring nature should allow. Aitken provides a bit of biographical background on her subject, mainly a difficult childhood that taught her how important compassion is by reverse example and her relationship with her late husband, who was also a self-learner. By the end, we understand why Mesear works with hummingbirds specifically and exclusively, how her background made her perfectly suited to the work, and how much it means to her.

The rest of it is simply witnessing the work in action and listening to the hard-earned wisdom Mesear has to offer—and not just about the lives, behaviors, and other qualities of hummingbirds. If there is some kind of magic in these creatures, it must have passed on to Mesear in some way. She becomes a model of kindness, patience, and honesty about the possibilities and limitations of how people can treat each other, interact with nature, and make some small difference in the world.

Sure, the hummingbirds' stories are engaging, but Every Little Thing pretty much assumes that's going to be the case. In between those tales is the picture of a more human and humane story that's just as worthy of our attention.

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