DN:FILM The Biggest Little Farm

If John and Molly Chester learn a few things while building their farm from the sun-baked dirt up, it’s that birds destroy crops, pigs get sick, coyotes feast on chickens, organic eggs sell crazy-fast and manure is magic. Stars of the inspiring, at times harrowing auto-doc THE BIGGEST LITTLE FARM, thirty-something couple John and Molly chronicle what happens over seven years when they ditch their tiny Santa Monica apartment for 200 neglected acres one hour outside L.A. to miraculously conjure a working, biodiverse farm. It’s a quixotic, back-to-the-land quest made of heedless ambition and fashionable enlightenment. “Everyone told us that attempting to farm in harmony with nature would be reckless if not impossible,” says John, this enchanting film’s director and narrator.

Well, almost impossible. John, a wildlife cinematographer—blame him for the movie’s gorgeous nature imagery—and Molly, a private chef and food blogger, both humbly adventurous, seek purpose via this sustainable farm. “Not just any farm,” John says. “Something out of a children’s book.” (Cue cutesy animation sequences a la “Charlotte’s Web.") Molly yearns to grow everything she cooks in conservational fashion, as if from a “traditional farm from the past,” dutifully echoing the Earth-friendly ethos of the likes of chef Alice Waters and responsible-foodie manifesto-writer Michael Pollan (“The Omnivore’s Dilemma”).

With only a single dashed-off allusion to raising funds, money becomes the doc’s nagging question: How in the world did the couple finance this massive undertaking, including a field crew and magnificent new house? (That’s their business, sure, yet the omission remains a distraction.)

Over the seven tumultuous years of fighting pests, drought and the elements, the Chesters’ apparent folly gradually assumes the mantle of glorious accomplishment. Through toil and struggle, heartache and heartbreak, all on graphic display in a tidy 91 minutes, they cultivate a luminous idyll, a practically paradisiacal spread bounding with life, joy and abundance. You almost can’t believe your eyes.