All of us living in battered, unbowed Los Angeles could use a dose of the restorative right about now. Sally Aitken’s documentary “Every Little Thing” offers just that, giving us a glimpse of some small-scale repair work that bursts with compassion. The job comprises mending hummingbirds, some of the city’s most welcome denizens year round.
Rehab can mean something very specific in L.A.: a boutique industry in a picturesque setting. But for a hummingbird with a broken wing or a nestling with a missing mom, the situation is life-threatening. Wildlife volunteer Terry Masear’s devoted, 20-years-and-counting focus on the city’s tiniest constituents makes her something of an all-in-one health care program wherever she goes with her crocheted beds, self-made recovery cages and TLC. (Her outfit is called Los Angeles Hummingbird Rescue.)
The hot months are the busiest season for Masear’s in-demand skill set. With Aitken’s cameras there to capture the influx of “finders” calling Masear’s hotline and rushing their birds over, we watch the gray-haired, soft-spoken healer in action — from makeshift ICU and physical therapy, to the outdoor patio’s treatment center, complete with nectar-rich flowers and a bubbling fountain. It’s the last waystation before the hard-earned freedom of rejuvenated flight.
Indeed, in its emphasis on a unique healer-patient relationship, “Every Little Thing” is at its core a heartwarming hospital drama with a literally colorful cast of characters. Captured by Ann Johnson Prum’s high-speed cinematography and macro lenses, the hummingbirds are simply stunning: otherworldly creatures of shimmery hues and feathery beauty. And with their loving caregiver offering sweet, amusing commentary as she makes her rounds, these diminutive, needle-beaked figures’ personalities fill the screen, too — who’s struggling with their injuries, who’s eager to feel the wind beneath their damaged wings again, who’s angling for a relationship with a cage mate, who’s got a rebellious streak.
We also gather what this calling of kindness means to the PhD-accomplished Masear, who is herself working through accumulated wounds, some going as far back as childhood, others more recent. Naturally, these delicate birds give her life a soothing meaning. It’s interesting that for all the ways Masear speaks passionately about humans needing to respect wildlife, not to dominate, it doesn’t go unnoticed that perhaps, on one level, she’s meddling in that survival-of-the-fittest process by saving the ones she can.
But isn’t such interference an active approach to peaceful co-existence? It’s a mindset in keeping with the thoughtful Delhi bird doctors from the great 2022 documentary “All That Breathes” and their belief that we all share a “community of air.” That’s what’s moving about “Every Little Thing.” It isn’t about some precious notion of a beloved cuteness enduring, but that when Masear’s recuperation works as intended — and it doesn’t always, regrettably — what she’s offering is hope and renewed strength.
It’s hard to describe what it means to watch that right now as an Angeleno: the exchange of life forces, the consideration of temporary fragility and the steady belief in rebuilding lives that flap at 80 beats a second. When Masear dedicates herself to something as simple as an impaired hummingbird’s hesitant first jump from one stick to another, the tension is both unexpectedly beautiful and poignant. These are small, scary steps for hummingbirds, seeding faith in giant leaps for humankind.
