About 70 minutes into Every Little Thing, an energetic young bird named Jimmy goes on a rampage. Weeks into his rehabilitation after a fall from his nest, the orphaned Allen’s Hummingbird is ready to move into a shared living situation, a roomy cage with a rambunctious duo dubbed “The Wild Boys.” Terry Masear, our hero, has him in her hand just outside the enclosure when—“Oh, shit”—he breaks loose and shoots up to the ceiling.

If you or anyone you know needs proof that the entire human race isn’t beyond redemption, may I suggest a screening of Sally Aitken’s documentary Every Little Thing.

The film follows Los Angeles author and educator Terry Masear, who rescues injured hummingbirds. She initially came to the work by accident, after her cat brought in an infant bird. The fragility of the tiny creature took her down a fascinating path. “I’m without children,” she says in the film. “I have hummingbirds.” 

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.

Framed by enchanting close-up, slow-motion shots of flowers blooming and hummingbirds flying, “Every Little Thing” captures the level of care subject Terry Masear so generously gives to rehabilitating the hummingbirds of Los Angeles. It’s clear from moment one how much work Writer/Director Sally Aitken put into creating the film based on Masear’s book “Fastest Things on Wings”–from the technical challenge of actually filming such small, lightning fast birds to editing together the footage to convey the stories contained in the material.

The life of Terry Masear and the lives of the hummingbirds she cares for are the subject of director Sally Aitken’s documentary, Every Little Thing.

Deep in the heart of Los Angeles, Aitken manages to capture a pastoral beauty in the area as she documents Terry’s efforts to rehabilitate injured hummingbirds. Many of the hummingbirds that come Terry’s way are nestlings who have lost their mothers. Others have suffered an injury of sorts, such as being hit by a car or attacked by another hummingbird.

Masear is the expert who can talk you through how to tend to the creature or safely guide it back outdoors. She's also the focus of the uplifting new documentary Every Little Thing about her efforts to personally rehabilitate a handful of hummingbirds who are broken or damaged. Not every one of them has a happy ending, but some do—and each benefits from her care and compassion.

The life of Terry Masear and the lives of the hummingbirds she cares for are the subject of director Sally Aitken’s documentary, Every Little Thing.

Deep in the heart of Los Angeles, Aitken manages to capture a pastoral beauty in the area as she documents Terry’s efforts to rehabilitate injured hummingbirds. Many of the hummingbirds that come Terry’s way are nestlings who have lost their mothers. Others have suffered an injury of sorts, such as being hit by a car or attacked by another hummingbird.

Sally Aitken is shining a light on an under-explored, but important, natural subject in Every Little Thing. Having gotten her start behind the camera with the PBS period miniseries Colonial House, Aitken has helmed both narrative and documentary projects throughout her career, though has largely been focused on the latter genre, ranging from Getting Frank Gehry to Disney+'s Playing with Sharks: The Valerie Taylor Story.

They say the measure of any society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. We could reverse engineer the idea and arrive at another perhaps obvious, though rarely stated (and even more rarely practiced) truth: that healing a society, maybe even a civilization, begins with healing its most vulnerable members. That thought runs through one’s mind while watching Sally Aitken’s Every Little Thing, a documentary as delicately beautiful as its subjects — the hummingbirds of Los Angeles and the woman who has made it her life’s mission to care for them.

The documentary about a Los Angeles woman who has made it her life’s mission to rehabilitate injured hummingbirds has a gentle sweetness that feels like a balm. Terry Masear, the subject of writer-director Sally Aitken’s film, has a no-nonsense demeanor, but her affection for these tiny creatures is unmistakable. She gives them names like Raisin, Cactus and Wasabi. She assigns them narratives as she observes their behavior. She painstakingly builds them elaborate aviaries and lovingly feeds them from a syringe.