Small is Beautiful- A Tiny House Documentary Review

Last week we had a wonderful opportunity to watch a new tiny house documentary, Small is Beautiful. Directed by Jeremy Beasley out of Melbourne, Australia, the film takes place in Portland, Oregon, which has become something of a mecca of tiny homes. The movie follows the lives of four tiny house people at different stages of their dreams.

Ben, a quirky 20 something, builds his dream using an inheritance on the side of a road in an alarmingly steep parking lot. Karen, 50, has been living in her tiny home for several years, yet faces many of the tiny house issues that those who haven’t taken the tiny home plunge fear.

We made the biggest connection to Nikki and Mitchell, as their story is very similar to ours; a young couple with two dogs that aren’t interested in living a life filled with stuff and debt. Like Nikki and Mitchell, we moved in with our parents while we built our bus conversion home, and frequently used their big house to figure out what was “normal”, including countertop height, couch width, or how tall something has to be for us to bang our heads on it.

Though the storyline flowed well and left us satisfied with where everyone stood in their builds and lives, it really hit the nail on the head in regards to Tiny Homes not always being perfect. We made many stupid mistakes along the way, like Ben cutting a board too short at the start of the documentary. It was nice to see real moments like that throughout the film. 

Small is Beautiful also explored deeper into the lives of the tiny house people in ways that we haven’t seen in other documentaries. With overly ambitious timelines to build, loss of family members, questioning of self and purpose, and community support and involvement, this film really covers the docket of emotions that accompanies building a tiny home.

We had plenty of moments during our build where it just sucked and you didn't want people asking you how amazing it was. There's a big pressure to be happy and perfect when you're trying something new, this movie will help others realize that it's not always perfect, things don't always go exactly as you planned, and that's ok.

The feature length documentary runs for 68 minutes and will be released worldwide in March/April 2015. Stay up to date on the film’s release at http://smallbeautifulmovie.com

Check out the trailer and a preview of the lovely soundtrack below:


Small is Beautiful - A Tiny House Documentary from Jeremy Beasley on Vimeo.