Stuart Little is a 1999 family film about a mouse who joins a human household in Manhattan. M. Night Shyamalan co-wrote the screenplay with Greg Brooker, and Rob Minkoff directed. The film premiered at the Mann Village Theatre in Westwood on December 5, 1999, and was released in the United States on December 17 through Sony Pictures Releasing and its Columbia Pictures label.
Trailer, via Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers.
A Mouse Adopted in Manhattan
The premise is simple. Frederick and Eleanor Little go to an orphanage to find a brother for their son, George. They come home with Stuart, an anthropomorphic mouse. George refuses to call him a brother. Snowbell, the family cat, is disgusted at the idea of being a pet to a mouse.
That is the engine of the movie, and it runs on a clean joke: the adoption is sincere, the household is not ready, and the smallest member of the family has the most to prove. The tagline says it flatly — “The Little family just got bigger.”
Michael J. Fox and the Voice Cast
The cast list is the film’s strongest asset, and it splits neatly in two.
- Michael J. Fox voices Stuart
- Geena Davis and Hugh Laurie play Eleanor and Frederick Little
- Jonathan Lipnicki plays George
- Nathan Lane voices Snowbell
- Chazz Palminteri voices Smokey, Steve Zahn voices Monty, David Alan Grier voices Red
- Bruno Kirby and Jennifer Tilly voice Mr. and Mrs. Stout
Fox gives Stuart a bright, unforced cheerfulness that keeps the character from turning saccharine. Lane does the opposite work: Snowbell is vain and put-upon, and Lane plays him as a cat with a grievance rather than a villain. The two performances are the reason the film holds together. Davis and Laurie, meanwhile, play the adoption straight, which is the right call.
The Washing Machine and the Model Boat
The plot moves through a series of set pieces, and the two that matter are the washing machine and the boat race.
Stuart’s first full day in the house goes badly. He gets trapped in the washing machine, falls ill, and recovers. It is a small scene, but it establishes the stakes of being mouse-sized in a human home — the appliances are lethal, and nobody thinks about it.
The boat race is the film’s centerpiece. Stuart has been encouraging George to finish his model boat for an upcoming race, and a bond starts to form. On race day, Stuart accidentally drops the remote control, a passerby steps on it, and the boat is useless. So Stuart jumps in and pilots it himself, narrowly avoiding a crash and winning. That win is what finally gets George to accept him as a brother.
Snowbell, Monty and Smokey
The cats get their own thread. Snowbell and his alley cat friend Monty meet Monty’s superior, Smokey, and the three formulate a plan to dispose of Stuart. It is the film’s only real source of menace, and it is played for comedy rather than dread.
Then the movie makes its sharpest turn. At a family celebration, a mouse couple named Reggie and Camille Stout arrive claiming to be Stuart’s biological parents, saying poverty forced them to give him up. The Littles let Stuart leave with them. It is a genuinely unsettling sequence for a family film — the parents hand over their adopted son to strangers on almost no evidence.
The Stouts and Mrs. Keeper
Three days later, Mrs. Keeper, the head of the orphanage, visits the Littles to check on things. They tell her Stuart’s real parents came and took him away. She tells them Stuart’s real parents died.
That is the hinge of the whole movie, and it arrives late. The film spends its final act correcting a mistake the adults should never have made. It works, but it works because the audience is ahead of the Littles the entire time.
An Oscar Nomination and a Franchise
Stuart Little grossed over $300 million worldwide and drew generally positive reviews. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and lost to The Matrix. The film also marked Estelle Getty’s final role before her retirement in 2001 and her death in 2008.
The success built a franchise: Stuart Little 2 in 2002, a short-lived television series in 2003, and the direct-to-video Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild in 2006.
What Holds Up and What Doesn’t
The visual effects nomination is the most interesting fact in the film’s record, because the effects are the part that has aged worst. A photoreal mouse sharing scenes with Geena Davis and Hugh Laurie was a real technical problem in 1999, and the solution was to keep Stuart’s screen time in motion — running, piloting, falling — rather than holding on him in stillness. The film is smart about that.
What holds up is the casting and the pacing. At 84 minutes, Stuart Little does not waste time. It sets up the adoption, runs the washing machine, builds to the boat race, and turns the corner into the Stouts’ arrival without a sag. That is tighter than most family films of its budget.
What does not hold up is the emotional logic. George’s turn from rejection to acceptance is earned by a boat race, which is thin, and the Littles’ decision to hand Stuart to the Stouts is a plot convenience the film only partly answers for. The cats’ plan is also more interesting than the movie lets it be — Smokey, Monty and Snowbell are a better comedy trio than the film uses them as.
The oddest thing about Stuart Little, in the end, is how little it resembles the people who made it. Shyamalan’s later work is built on twist endings and dread; here he co-wrote a warm adoption story with a talking cat. Minkoff went from animation to a live-action debut about a mouse in Manhattan. Neither artist is visible in the final product, and that is probably the point — this is a studio family film made by professionals doing the job, and the job gets done.
It is not a great movie. It is a competent one with two excellent voice performances, a clean structure, and a third act that resolves too easily. Fox and Lane carry it past its weak spots, and 84 minutes is exactly the right length for what it is.
The TMDB audience score is 6.1 out of 10, based on 4,756 votes.
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