Palm Springs Shortfest: ‘Little Goodbyes’ is a Yuletide Tale with Unexpected Understanding

When you’re a kid at Christmastime, everything glows. The lights illuminate the streets, your living room, and the stores your parents take you to as the yuletide season approaches. There’s something comforting, warm and nostalgic about seeing strings of colorful lights through the glass of a frosted, frigid window. That feeling is captured perfectly in Justine Martin’s Little Goodbyes, a film full of quiet wonders.

Do you remember the little worlds that you created as a young kid? Maybe it was under a table or a blanketed fort, and, most of the time, you didn’t know what you were doing when you were doing it. These spaces become private clubs and treasured seclusions just to declare them as your own. Young Simone and Florence sit underneath a tableclothed table in the salon where their mother works as the holiday festivities buzz around them. Florence hands out treats to the customers drying their hair as their mother works, and they cut out images of magazines to place on the Christmas tree under the table. It’s like they have their own little version of a tree away from the prying eyes of the adults around them.

When Florence and Simone trot out into the street, the adult world welcomes them, but are they prepared for the unexpected pangs of growing up? They find Santa Claus in a church and secretly confirm that he isn’t allergic to the yule log that they plan to leave for him on Christmas Eve, and a sweet , pretty angel gives them candy canes. Martin’s film is lit darker as these sisters navigate alleys and pass by closed up shops. Maybe the adults are wearier out here, but Florence and Simone won’t understand why until they get older. The cold wind they hear inside the salon feels different when they feel it brushing against their young faces when they are outside.

Florence, while still very young, is older than her sister, and Little Goodbyes shows how we protect the innocence of others. We grow up little by little without noticing it, and Martin’s gentle hand brings light to just one of those moments while handling it with such loving care. Florence is protective of Simone in only the way that an older sibling can be of their younger sister. Little Goodbyes is full of these little treasures. Hold onto that innocence as long as you can, because the world looks merrier when you truly believe.

Little Goodbyes has its international premiere at the Palm Springs Shortfest, and it will play as part of Indy Shorts’ Let’s Be Honest program.